Forgiveness
by CrystalMaiden77
Summary: After a landslide claims the lives of most of the Suppression Squad, Miles, or Anti-Tails, is left as the only survivor. Not wanting to risk it alone, he reluctantly decides to return to working for Scourge. Fiona convinces Scourge to give him a chance. But will he ever forgive him for his betrayal?
1. Chapter 1

The infamous Anti-Tails known as Miles Prower sighed sadly in his empty house, which was once full of life and energy. He was alone, separated permanently from the Suppression Squad. Without them, he felt directionless and lost. Running that gang was the most important thing in the world to him. It made him satisfied, not only at taking away Scourge's position and besting him, but at knowing that he was doing it competently, keeping the gang together and healthy. But now that he was alone, he had nothing left to live for. No one would take the Suppression Squad seriously if they found out that he was left as its only remaining member, and it would only be a matter of time before people would figure out their absence and come after him with vicious intent.

Feeling like there was nothing left for him in his home world, he used a globe post to transport himself to Sonic's dimension, deciding to go after the only goal that mattered to him anymore, his goal to defeat Tails and prove that he was superior to him. He wasn't sure what he would do after that. He wasn't sure if he could ever have a happy life again. But focusing on that one goal gave him motivation and drive, and kept him moving, rather than lying in his bed stressed out and depressed, no longer feeling safe in the world.

Miles wandered Sonic's dimension alone, wracked with survivor guilt, blaming himself for what happened to his teammates. Was he a good enough leader for them? He couldn't have possibly known what would happen to them on that mission, and there was nothing he could've done at the time to save them. All he could do was fly out of the way of the landslide, because he wasn't able to save them all himself. But despite his logical and rational mind telling him that it wasn't his fault, he couldn't stop thinking about ways that he could've prevented it, blaming himself for influencing Alicia to send everyone on that mission in the first place. He was certain that if he wasn't too panicked to be thinking clearly, he could've come up with a plan to save all of them, but only focused on saving himself. He was a coward, and he felt like he betrayed them, people that he didn't want to betray.

He was headed for the Mystic Ruins, sitting in a train on its way to Sonic and Tails' house where everyone gave him a funny look, with some wondering if he was Tails' long-lost identical twin and with others wondering if he was Tails in a costume, but with none of them voicing their thoughts loud enough for him to hear them. They all stared at him in confusion, making him feel self-conscious about being the center of attention against his will. Soon, the people in the train stopped staring and started talking amongst themselves, carrying on mundane conversations about their personal lives, unaware that Miles had his eyes darting around the train watching everyone like a hawk, looking wary and on edge as he listened to their chatter for any signs that they were judging him. He always hated being in public, especially when he was alone without any allies around him, and being trapped in a train with a large crowd of potential threats was nerve-wracking beyond measure.

After a few minutes of hearing nothing related to himself, he overheard one of the people on the train say the words, " … Jimmy Smith is such a freak, " and the instant Miles heard the final word of that sentence, he jumped with a jolt and instantly became tense. He started shaking with his pupils shrunken as he immediately turned his head to look at the wolf Mobian child that he instinctively registered as a threat. Even though he knew he wasn't talking about him, just hearing the word being uttered brought back unpleasant memories, horrible, terrifying memories of being bullied for having two tails, beaten, insulted, shunned, and hunted down, something that stopped happening to him after Scourge took him into his gang and threatened anyone who tried to continue with the mistreatment. But even after he was taken into his gang, he still knew that he wasn't accepted by his world, because the instant he found himself without any of his gang members around him, he found himself being insulted, threatened, sneered at and dismissed by everyone he met, for something that he couldn't even help.

Despite all of his efforts to distract himself by looking frantically around the train, with his second tail tucked behind the first in a futile attempt to hide it, Miles vividly remembered one of the last times that happened to him. What started out as a mere argument with a shopkeeper escalated to him telling him exactly why the rest of the world hated him.

" You think you're _so_ tough and so much better than us because you're working for the Suppression Squad and can do whatever you want, and that the world respects you now because you're working for Scourge, but you wanna know the truth?! The truth is you're the most condescending and uppity brat on the face of the earth, and you have no excuse for thinking that highly of yourself when you have _nothing to offer!_ You think you're so freaking valuable because you think you're so smart, but you're not! You act all snooty and say nothing but big words in a pathetic attempt to prove your superiority and you say that you have all the intelligence in the world, but you don't do _anything_ to prove it! You're nothing but a criminal brat who does nothing of value! You're _worthless,_ _Tails!_ You hear me?! Worthless! You're someone who shouldn't exist! We don't want you here! And no one ever will! You're nothing but an obnoxious little _freak!_ And that's all you'll ever be! " Miles gasped and looked terrified for a moment before forcing himself to look furious with his fists clenched to save face, his pupils shrunken from fear, and as he started shaking with rage at what he called him, he felt overwhelmed with the feeling that it wasn't fair, and that he was right.

At first, he was able to handle it by convincing himself that the man ranting at him was only jealous, but as he got further and further into his rant, Miles went from simply angry to getting a feeling of dread at realizing that he was once again being treated as worthless, and when he finally said his final two sentences, he confirmed exactly what he had feared.

When he received any other insult, about his personality or his capabilities, he could deal with it with a simple angry or condescending response, but being dismissed as inherently worthless for something he couldn't even help, opened up deep scars every time he went through it. As a result, while Miles tried to look furious with him and said, " How _dare_ you! I'll make you _pay_ for your, insolence! " he was completely incapable of hiding how shaken up he was at the insult; his voice sounded choked up, he was shaking with a cold sweat, and his eyes were clearly watering to the point where he had to force himself not to blink to keep the tears from slipping out.

Forcing himself to look enraged in a vain attempt to save face, Miles growled dangerously with his frustration at years of mistreatment boiling over, and he focused entirely on his desire for revenge. As his fists began to unclench from his overwhelming desire to just run home right away, he started becoming desperate, incredibly desperate for a solution. He knew that he wasn't nearly as great of a fighter as Scourge, especially not when it came to mere melee attacks, and that fact left him even more frustrated, causing him to start wishing that he was more powerful himself, to the point where he started to vividly fantasize about it, imagining sparks of golden electricity sparking out of his palms until they formed into growing energy balls that felt ready to burst out of his hands in bolts of lightning at the quickest opportunity in the perfect expression of the rush of energy that his adrenaline filled him with. The sky above him, which was once clear and blue and sunny, rapidly darkened as it became covered in expanding thunderclouds and heavy torrents of rain started to escape them, with thunder booming and the wind howling as it began to pick up around him. It was as dark as midnight in the middle of the day.

He shouted, " Your king Scourge will be hearing about this! He'll NEVER- " The instant he swiped his right arm to the left to emphasize the last word, he was surprised by a golden lightning bolt getting thrown out of his hand at light speed and causing the hot dog stand of the confused and frightened shopkeeper to explode in fire and smoke with a loud booming sound.

The shopkeeper yelped and ducked under the remains of his shop, and Miles immediately proceeded to throw lightning bolts at him one after the other with furious grunts and shouts as he ran away terrified and the rest of the people around him watched him in fear, with every single lightning bolt either striking the ground or causing severe property damage in his act of unstoppable rage. If he was in a rational state of mind, he would've run after him to ensure that he wouldn't get away, or at least been surprised and confused for a lot longer at discovering that he could throw lightning instead of instinctively seeing nothing unusual about it. But he was completely overwhelmed with powerless frustration, throwing bolt after bolt of lightning from a standstill in a desperate attempt to not look as helpless as he felt. The sky itself seemed to revolt against the ground as several bolts of lightning at once started striking it from the clouds in random places until no part of it in front of Miles was left without being struck.

When Miles threw the last bolt of lightning at the maximum distance he could, he finally collapsed from exhaustion, panting and overheating with his eyes closed from the mental exertion and unable to bear summoning any more. Feeling so exhausted and stressed immediately reminded him of his 4-year-old self hiding in the bushes of a forest on Coconut Island, hoping against hope that he wouldn't be found too exhausted to run or defend himself by the vicious people hunting him down. He knew that those experiences were in the past, but feeling exhausted and feeling like everyone around him was against him forced him to think about it, and he forced himself to look angry and shout uselessly at the bully as he left his sight, looking at the ground to hide his tears with his hands on the ground ready to eventually push him up from it, and acted as frustrated as he could to hide his inner turmoil from everyone watching.

Hearing the sound of shoes hitting the ground rushing to his side only heightened his anxiety, as he couldn't stand anyone having the gall to approach him and insult him even more. Finally, as Miles sat himself up and realized how obvious it was just by looking at him that he was more than just angry, as he realized how pointless his acting angry was, his resolve broke, and he covered his eyes with his hands as he broke down sobbing at last, feeling so choked up that he was unable to inhale without gasping and unable to exhale without sharp short breaths, his head starting to ache as he became overwhelmed by flashbacks of every other time he had been reduced to such a pitiful state. He was humiliated, and couldn't bear the thought of the people surrounding him judging him as pathetic because of it, or worse, taking the opportunity to attack him in his moment of weakness, feeling their judgmental eyes piercing into him as they stared at him in shock. In the middle of a whirlwind of unbearable emotions spiralling out of control, he could've sworn he heard the frantic words, " Miles, calm down! " in the voice of Scourge the Hedgehog. Scourge… his first ever friend.

The first person in the world who not only accepted him for his second tail, but thought it was cool and brought him into his home, defending him from anyone who disagreed. The first person to ever give him a chance, who allowed him to stay in his home and stood up for him at every opportunity, to the point where people became afraid to treat him with prejudice with Scourge around because anyone who did received a punch in the face at best. And while Scourge did annoy him, he still made his life better by accepting him for what made him different, and introducing him to a group of understanding friends that saw him for his skills and personality rather than his tails. Scourge wasn't always the best friend to him. But he still owed a lot to him, potentially even his life, and every time Miles remembered how horrible his life before him used to be, he felt like he had no right to complain.

" Hey, Miles? Miles! What's the matter?! " Scourge said to him in a hurried panic, rushing to his side after having witnessed everything he needed to. He hadn't been around for all of the shopkeeper's rant, but all he needed to hear was that he called him a freak and he knew exactly what was the matter. He quickly looked up at the crowd of people that were watching his sudden breakdown, staring at a heartbroken child who had broken down crying showing nothing but shocked confusion and doing nothing to reassure him in any sense, and he instantly shot them all a glare, glaring daggers at them with his fists clenched and causing them to leave in a hurry. A part of him wondered if at least a couple of those people actually felt sorry for Miles and just didn't want to draw attention to themselves by comforting him, but he had no patience for their bystander syndrome in a situation like that and sent them away with a silent warning.

The minute he had made sure that no one else was watching, he immediately started trying to snap him out of it, internally frustrated with himself for being weak enough to be focused on how upset Miles was and not on taking advantage of the useful power he discovered he had. Since Miles didn't seem to react to hearing his voice and instead continued sobbing into his hands kneeled to the ground, Scourge realized that the only way to get his attention was to put his hands on his shaking shoulders. The sudden physical contact startled Miles and he felt him slightly jump from it.

" Miles? It's me… Scourge! Remember me? " he said quietly, keeping his voice quiet to avoid him instinctively thinking he was in trouble while not whispering because that always made him wary and suspicious. Hearing his attempt to comfort him caused Miles' trembling to decrease, but while part of him appreciated the sympathy, he was still humiliated and frustrated at the idea of looking like a crybaby having an emotional outburst and proving him right about being dismissive of him so much for being a kid, and he desperately tried to hide the fact that he was sad, forcing himself to look even more frustrated and shake his head at him. He wanted to be comforted, but he also wanted to be left alone.

" T-That insolent, _bastard!_ H-H-How could he say that to me?! How could he call me that?! He, h-h-how could he have the gall to, DON'T TOUCH ME!... L-L-Leave me ALONE! I'm not, I'm not... " Miles stammered out in useless frustration, attempting to stay strong in front of Scourge and failing because his voice was choked up, and he had to force himself not to breathe to avoid sobbing in front of him some more. Realizing that he wasn't doing quite enough to get through to him, Scourge held back a sigh of reluctance and wrapped his arms around him, bringing him close to his chest in a quick impulsive motion. With that, he held him in a tight protective embrace, not nearly tight enough to cause pain, but enough to let him know that he would always be there for him.

It always felt strange, being comforting like that, and he didn't entirely feel like himself, feeling very self-conscious about how rare it was for him to show someone that amount of compassion and understanding. But he couldn't bring himself to just leave him there. That would be letting his bullies win, making him feel like they were right about their opinion that he was worthless and unlikable, and even he had to admit that a child as young as Miles being driven to such misery and turmoil from prejudice and hatred was something that should not happen. As annoyed as he was by Miles' bitter and condescending personality, he couldn't bring himself to not sympathize with him; even he had standards, and him knowing Miles for such a long time certainly helped.

" You still remember, huh? " Scourge said sadly with a depressed tone, trying to convey his sympathy for him and hoping he wouldn't get too offended. " SHUT UP! S-Shut _UP!_ Of course I remember! I'll _never_ forget how they treated me! That doesn't mean I'm weak! There's nothing WRONG with me! I'm not traum, I-I-I'm not _that…_ " Miles attempted to shout angrily, with a cracking voice that reduced it to a pitiful whimper.

With tears running down his face, Miles said quietly with a cracking voice and a forced tone of bitterness, " Those bastards… " After a brief silence, he exclaimed, " How could they do that to me?! " with his breaking voice sounding far sadder than he had wanted.

Crying into Scourge's left shoulder as he sat on the ground in front of him, Miles was trying as hard as he could to act frustrated to save face, but he knew how pointless it was, and as Scourge started to gently stroke the back of his head, it finally began to sink in what Scourge was doing for him. The sheer impact of being hugged by someone like Scourge, and after months of being deprived of affection, stunned him into silence and caused him to give up on acting angry before he even knew what he was doing.

Before he knew it, he had completely given in and accepted his sympathy at last, returning the hug and giving up on looking angry as his expression gave way to one of sadness and anxiety. " It's not fair… " Miles whispered hopelessly, hoping that whispering would make his voice come out less pathetic. " It's just not fair… " he whispered with a depressed tone in his voice, trying to focus entirely on the compassion he was being shown as Scourge gently caressed his head with his right hand while continuing to hold him with his left. " That was the past! Those people aren't gonna hurt ya anymore! I got rid of 'em for ya, remember? " Scourge said quietly, looking worried. " But what about everyone else?... It's not just that one island of people who hate me. It's everyone! Everyone… everyone who isn't my friend wants me dead! " Miles replied quietly with a miserable tone in his wavering voice.

Scourge sighed unhappily. He wondered if Miles would ever stop being stuck in the past, or if he would spend his entire life trapped in that mindset, the terrified paranoid survivalist mindset that he was still on that island struggling for survival being hunted down for being a mutant. " I won't let 'em hurt you, Miles. As long as you're with me, I'll stand up for you in a heartbeat. And I _promise_ I'll make 'em all pay. That shopkeeper won't get away with insulting my friend. I _promise_ , " he promised him in a serious tone and a quiet voice, and gradually Miles began to relax in his arms, sniffling and savoring the rare affection he was being shown while it lasted.

It only took another minute for Miles to be calmed down enough to agree to walk home with him, being convinced that he didn't look like he had been crying so recently and didn't have to worry about people judging him for it. When Scourge finally got him to stop crying, the sky, while still dark and covered in rainclouds, slowly started undergoing the process of brightening up, with the lightning strikes stopping entirely while the rain continued to fall at an increasingly tamer rate. Miles, who was used to thunderstorms suddenly starting exclusive to the small area he was standing in while he was feeling miserable, didn't think anything of it, thinking it was just a poetic coincidence that nature itself appeared to synchronize the weather with his emotional state, letting the thunder vent out his frustrations and the rain express his sadness.

But Scourge noticed exactly how strange it was. Looking back on all the years he had known Miles, there were a much larger amount of thunderstorms in his city after he brought Miles home with him, and Miles _had_ told him that the people of his island had blamed him for the spike in lightning strikes starting from his arrival on the island. Thinking back on that and what he had just witnessed, Scourge began to get the suspicion that Miles might discover himself to be a lot more powerful than he could've ever imagined.

" I looked pathetic, didn't I? " Miles said to him sadly in a rhetorical question, stopping on the sidewalk when they were walking home with Scourge in deep thought. His head was hung low from bitter shame. Snapped out of his train of thought from Miles' sad tone, Scourge looked unhappy before smiling and putting his arm around him in a sideways hug as he said with a proud smile, " What, you? Come on, with that awesome new power of yours? Come on, man, you can shoot lightning out of your hands! How is that not awesome?! And hey, if that whole thing hadn't happened, you would've never learned you could do that. I say it was worth it! Now as soon as you go home, you can feel free to do as much research as you want and try to figure out exactly why you have that power in the first place. If you can create lightning and storms whenever ya want, who knows what else you're capable of?! "

Looking confused and surprised, Miles said, " Storms? " After a brief silence, Scourge said cheerfully with a cocked eyebrow from amusement, " What, you think it's _normal_ for the weather to go from clear skies to a thunderstorm and then back again in the span of a minute? I've never seen the ground get struck by lightning so many times in a row, and all right in front of your face! Doesn't that strike you as a bit _too_ convenient? "

Stunned, Miles said quietly, " Not really? I mean, I know it's unlikely that lightning will happen to strike in exactly the right time and place when it's convenient for me, but it's happened so many times by now that I got used to it. I've lost count of all the people who've tried hunting me down only to get scared away by lightning almost striking them! It's no wonder I'm not afraid of it anymore. Why would I fear something so helpful? I know it's unusual. I just figured it was an unusual pattern of coincidences that were exclusive to me, as if the universe was trying to make it up to me. I-It's happened for as long as I can remember, so I stopped questioning it after a while. Wh-What are you implying? "

With an impressed look on his face, Scourge said, " Miles, you have a gift! I thought you were awesome before, but that's _nothing_ compared to this! Miles, it's not a coincidence that lightning always happens to strike where you want it. It's not a coincidence that the rate of thunderstorms gets boosted all the way up when you're around. I always thought those island dwellers were just being superstitious blaming you for bad weather, but they might just be right on the money! There's somethin' special about you. "

" You mean the fact that I'm a mutant? So what? Why would a second tail give me power over lightning? What does that have to do with anything? " Miles said warily. " Think about it, Miles! I knew from the second I met ya that you're no ordinary ' mutant. ' I mean, what mutant out there can fly, let alone run almost as fast as me?! And all from spinning your tails around way faster than physically possible! I may not be the most science-savvy guy around, but even I can tell there's somethin' up! It's not just because you have two tails, because if that was _all_ , you wouldn't have the cool abilities that you do! It's because there's power behind it. It's because deep inside of you is more power than I could've ever imagined. And I don't know why. Maybe it's for the same reason we can spindash. Or hell, maybe your second tail is the source of your powers! Maybe the amount of chaos energy you have in your body is the reason why you have it in the first place! " Miles muttered bitterly, " Wouldn't that be ironic… " too quiet for Scourge to hear. It would be just his luck that the one thing that made him so powerful was the one thing that made his life as miserable as it had been. He couldn't help being made uncomfortable from Scourge directly addressing his second tail for such a prolonged length of time, even if he was talking about it in an impressed tone of voice.

Scourge explained with a smile, " Where it comes from doesn't matter. My point is, you can control the weather, whether you mean to or not, and just the fact that you can control it without meaning to means a lot! It means you have an instinct for it! You have a connection to it, Miles. You got a lot of potential, and I want ya to realize it. Just imagine how much you could do with this if you kept at it! If you keep training and figuring yourself out, " brought Miles close to him in a sideways hug, and continued, " you might end up being nearly as powerful as me! " Scourge chuckled, and Miles rolled his eyes at Scourge being too proud to admit that his little brother might end up being more of a threat in battle than him, although he couldn't stay annoyed for long, because the sheer impact of being held close to him brought a smile to his face as soon as it sunk in. He missed that. He wished that he happened more often.

Later on, he would do research that would reveal to him that there were examples of two-tailed foxes throughout history that possessed incredible chaos abilities based on their innate element, most of which ended up turning against humanity for mistreatment just like he did. Miles discovered to his satisfaction that while an air kitsune like Tails probably was could only control the wind and freeze people in their tracks, the lightning kitsune was the most powerful one of all, with its ability to control the weather leading to a wide variety of powers beyond what he could've ever imagined himself having, powers that he couldn't have had if his body hadn't had such a massive amount of chaos energy that he developed a second tail in the first place.

Sitting on the seat of the Station Square train closest to the exit, Miles looked back on that memory with sadness, not just at being called a freak, but at being reminded of the fact that despite everything that was wrong with their friendship, Scourge still cared about him deep down. He made his life go from intolerable to bearable, from complete misery to having good things about it. He wasn't just his rival, he was more to him than just a leader he grew to resent, he gave him a family. By introducing him to the Anti-Freedom Fighters, he gave him a place where for the first time in his life, he felt like he belonged. For the first time, he felt like he had a family, and as bitter and hardened as that family was, they still cared about him and respected him, and not just in spite of his second tail, but partially because of it. They liked him for him. And he owed it all to Scourge, the closest he ever had to a brother.

Scourge gave Miles everything, and how did he repay him? By betraying him, usurping his role and position in the gang and exiling him from his home. Scourge gave him everything, and Miles took everything away from him. Not only did he have to deal with the crushing self-doubt that came from feeling like he could've prevented the deaths of his only friends, but for the first time, he began to feel guilty for how he lashed out at his former leader after he rescued him from a miserable life of being bullied and rejected.

It was because of all of the abuse and lack of compassion from everyone he met for as long as he could remember at the time, that he became the way he was in the first place. He could barely remember a time where he was like Tails, sweet and humble and trying to play the good Samaritan to break past people's prejudice and win their genuine approval. No matter how nice he tried to be, everyone used him as a scapegoat. They blamed him for bad weather, saying it was his fault the island had suffered seven times as many thunderstorms since the day of his birth. If someone so much as misplaced their keys, they'd blame him for it, even if he was on the other side of the island at the time.

Years of being mistreated and betrayed had led to him becoming bitter, vengeful and hateful, always feeling justified for his spiteful and selfish behavior, becoming paranoid that everyone was out to get him and viewing the world as his enemy, seeing everyone as a threat and wanting to get them before they got him. He fixated on his own intelligence as his fragile ego desperately tried to cling onto a reason to be proud of himself in spite of his mutation and avoid giving in and agreeing with their judgment of him as worthless, and he became a condescending snob in the process, feeling exhausted with everyone else and reassuring himself that he was superior to all of them.

Being used to being hated by that point and thankful that he was at least getting known for his personality rather than just his mutation, he became proud of his reputation as an insufferable genius, and acted to reinforce that perception, taking to drinking tea and listening to classical music to look sophisticated, reading books and playing instruments as a hobby, and trying to act like an adult, even though he was far from it. He did whatever he could to avoid showing weakness, being bitterly negative and cold whenever possible, because he couldn't stop his paranoid fear that if he didn't, if he let himself look like he was an easy target or could be taken advantage of, people would jump at the opportunity to show him exactly how much they hated him.

Even years after escaping the Anti-Cocoa Island with Scourge, Miles still had his experiences with being bullied for being a mutant permanently etched into his memories, with them being so vivid that it was as if they had only happened a day ago. And while he tried to downplay how important they were to him by refusing to discuss it, his experiences made him who he was. He would never forget being treated like a freak, and considering he was still treated like one whenever he was caught alone, it was impossible to. He thought of himself as a freak, and while he refused to agree with the implications of it being regarded as a bad thing, not wanting to believe he was a worthless abomination of nature, it didn't change the fact that he felt like he was strange and different and didn't belong every single day of his life, and he was bitter and defensive because of it. Not a day went by when he wasn't on edge, trying to protect himself from potential bullies long after they were a constant threat.

As he stared out the window of the train impatiently waiting for it to reach the Mystic Ruins, Miles kept hearing the name, " Tails, " come up in the conversations of the people surrounding him, and disliked the idea that he was being compared to him, or even worse, being called that as an insult again. He never liked being called Tails, even by his friends, who were just trying to remove the name's insulting feeling by saying it as a regular name. And while he tried to lie that it was only because it sounded childish, the true reason was that he just couldn't stop thinking of that name as insulting after he was called it as an insult for his entire life. The instant Scourge came back into his life more powerful than ever before and encouraged him and his teammates to change their names and appearances for the sake of individuality from their counterparts, Miles jumped at the opportunity to be called by his own name again, just because it wouldn't remind him of his past. Scourge had tried to make him forget his past by calling him Tails in a non-insulting way, but in the end, it only made him come off as cluelessly insensitive, acting like his past didn't matter and he was making too big of a deal out of it.

And somewhere along the line, his resentment towards Scourge for being self-absorbed and acting dismissive of him grew into hatred. Scourge took him in when he was five years old and brought him into a gang where he wasn't discriminated against for his mutation, getting his hopes up by saying that he didn't think anything was wrong with his second tail and complimenting it for allowing him to fly and keep up with him, just to insult him for his negativity, slap him and intimidate him to get his obedience, and take advantage of his powers. He was in a very similar position over him that Sonic was to Tails. The only real difference was that he abused it. He could've been seen as a big brother figure to him, but at the same time, he was a bully. A big brother bully, the worst kind.

Miles would always remember the frustration he had over how he had finally found people who accepted him for his mutation, only for him to end up being bullied anyways a year later, with Scourge calling him an arrogant jerk and a brat, hating him for his personality, for who he was, and not for what he looked like, something that hurt far more than being hated for superficial reasons. At least when he was hated for his mutation, he could convince himself that those people weren't seeing the real him and were just being shallow, and believe that he was still a worthwhile person and they just weren't seeing it. It felt even worse to discover that he could hated for who he actually was, or at least the persona he acted in to avoid looking weak, which eventually developed into being mostly real as the years went by.

He genuinely did believe he was better than everybody else and was proud of many aspects of himself, and was frustrated by stupidity, and was especially proud of being smart despite not applying his intelligence as obviously as Tails did, and tried to look sophisticated and mature in the face of dismissiveness to the point of constantly looking like he was trying too hard. But the mental and physical scars of being mistreated and judged for his mutation still remained, and being stared at like a circus freak by everyone in Station Square and everyone on its train brought back some painful memories. It reminded him that as much as he resented Scourge, he couldn't deny that his life became much better because of him. He owed his life to him for finding him injured in the woods, saving him from some vicious bullies and taking him in. And now that Scourge hated him, now that he had betrayed him, he had burned that bridge. He didn't want to be back to where he was before he had Scourge's " protection, " but that seemed to be exactly what was threatening to happen, and that was a fate worse than death to him, going right back to where he started. He might as well go back to his world's version of Cocoa Island while he was at it.

After that depressing and frustrating trip down memory lane, Miles ran out of the train in a yellow blur to get out of the public eye as fast as possible, spinning his tails behind him like a propeller being pushed forwards by the resulting blast of wind and flying towards Sonic and Tails' house impatient to take all of his frustrations out on someone else and stop feeling as powerless as he was.

He looked into the window, and smirked in satisfaction at conveniently spotting Tails in the kitchen alone, placing dishes into the dishwasher. There was nobody with him to interfere. It would be a one-on-one duel, where Tails would be completely defenseless. His Mobius counterpart, who he always considered to be spoiled by a happy life, turning out soft and childish and naïve because he never had to suffer like he did, or at least was taken out of it so early that he didn't remember it. Miles didn't want to admit it, but he was extremely jealous of how happy and carefree Tails was. It wasn't a desire to distinguish himself from him, it was envy that caused his resentment. He represented the person he could've been if he hadn't suffered for as long as he did, the person he would've been if circumstances were different. And yet, he hated that person. Was it self-hatred manifesting itself and making him take it out on Tails? He didn't want to dwell on the implications of that, and instead focused on how frustrating it was that Tails was the one fate picked to have a happy carefree life.

Wanting to make a dramatic entrance to get Tails intimidated right away, he snapped his fingers with a snooty look and his eyes closed, and just as he had expected, the skies above the Mystic Ruins became darkened by thick black thunderclouds and strong winds started howling around him, and Tails jumped at hearing loud thunder just above his house, startled by the sudden change in weather. " How?! There were clear skies just a second ago! " Tails shouted.

After Tails started trembling and wishing Sonic was there, there was a flash of lightning right outside his window with a startlingly loud sound, and he saw Miles appear in front of it, lit up by the resulting flash of light. Tails yelped and jumped from seeing his menacing glare. " Anti-Tails! " he exclaimed, confused about why he had decided to choose now of all moments to show up and fight him. Tails quickly locked the window, wanting to avoid a confrontation while Sonic wasn't home and he was already scared from a thunderstorm, and sighed in relief, only for Miles to shake his left hand while it was raised upwards and bent towards him with the back of it facing him, and quickly move his right hand in a wide circle with his eyes closed. The water vapor in the air froze into hail, which floated in the air and surrounded him, being prevented from hitting the ground by being caught in a tiny tornado forming around him. Smoothly and gracefully transitioning from one arm motion to the next, Miles commanded the wind that carried the hail effortlessly as he moved his arms around in a circle and moved his fingers in a triangle shape, mentally sharpening the snowflakes into icicles, and his dignified composure gave way to an enraged look as he made a throwing motion and sent thousands of tiny icicles through the window. Gasping, Tails ran to the left of the window to dodge them right before they pierced through the glass, being sent flying towards it at over 500 miles per hour. The window's glass was completely shattered, with Miles avoiding any potential injury by flying above the outside window with the tornado below him.

Miles quickly landed in front of the shattered window with a condescending exasperated look on his face, climbed into the now open window and into the kitchen in front of Tails, and smirked with his arms crossed at seeing him trembling, unable to believe what was happening. Putting both hands in front of his body and bent slightly forwards, he concentrated his energy and generated balls of crackling yellow electricity in his hands, charging them up as Tails stared at him speechless and stunned, and suddenly looking up and firing bolts of lightning through the ceiling to represent his power. Tails screamed, and Miles returned to his previous position, charging up energy again as thunder boomed in the skies every other second. Tails, terrified of being struck by lightning and experiencing his worst fear, exclaimed, '' How?! ''

As a thunderstorm full of gale force winds raged on from the power of his thoughts, Miles said proudly with a triumphant smirk, " I've been practicing! Training with my powers while you squandered time inventing! And now… I'm the most _powerful_ kitsune in the world! " He swung his arms at him in a quick motion, and the instant Tails realized what he was trying to do, he instinctively dodged the resulting bolt of lightning by running in a yellow blur to the other side of the room, barely moving faster than Miles could gesture to shoot the lightning at him.

Miles, who was expecting it to not be that easy, said without missing a beat while continuing to smirk, " Two-tailed foxes such as us can have a natural affinity for harnessing the power of the weather! But you never did. You're too much of a coward, too afraid of lightning to control it, and you waste all of your time building pointless inventions that nobody actually needs. You're a failure of a kitsune! And now that I've finally discovered what I'm capable of, I'll prove to you why I'm the superior one! "

Hurt by his words and full of panic, Tails screamed and ran out of the room, zig-zagging as much as he could to dodge the lightning strikes that followed him as he was chased out of the kitchen into the living room and out of his house. Miles flew after him throwing bolt after bolt of lightning at where he hoped he would be next, only to be disappointed at Tails constantly faking him out and zig-zagging to dodge his lightning as he evaded him.

Tails wished he was able to fight back, but he didn't have any abilities that would let him. He could fly into the air and attack him that way, but that would make him even more vulnerable to being struck by lightning as he became closer to him and higher in the air, and just the thought of potentially being struck by lightning sent him into a panic that made all rational thought impossible. He could grab a ray gun from his workshop and try to shoot him down with it, but that would require him to stop to turn around and face him. He wouldn't be able to dodge any of his attacks if he stopped and turned around to face him, and by the time he had raised his ray gun to him, it would be too late. Besides, entering a building as tiny and cramped as his workshop would make him a sitting duck, a far easier target with much less room to dodge his attacks.

He wished he had Sonic Wind as an ability like Sonic did, because he would've used it on him immediately if he did, and he had no faith that he'd be able to learn it. By using the power of the wind, Miles seemed to be using the ability himself, despite not having the wind colored blue like Sonic. But if he was capable of having the same abilities as Miles if he only trained enough, could he learn to do even one of his powers just from knowing that he could do it? After all, Sonic learned how to use Chaos Control from seeing Shadow use it and having plenty of time to reflect on how he could've done it. Just imagining shooting lightning out of his hands filled him with paralyzing fear, but something simple like summoning a gale force wind wouldn't be so hard, would it?

Despite being slightly frustrated with constantly missing with lightning bolts that should've been moving at light speed, Miles was thrilled by the chase, liking how freaked out he was making Tails because it reminded him of how powerful he had become, confirming that his training was enough and that he had surpassed Tails in power – and potentially even Scourge. But despite coming close to defeating Tails and reducing him to running away from him to escape him, he was abruptly stopped when Tails did something completely unexpected. He whipped around to face him with his hands together in front of his body, and a strong gale force wind glowing with yellow light was blasted out of his palms, knocking him out of the air and pinning him to the ground.

Miles screamed, and tried not to look panicked as he helplessly attempted to use his powers and failed because he couldn't do the gestures he wanted while his entire body was pinned to the ground as if a bully was holding him down for a beating. He tried to attack Tails with his tails, but the wind was so strong that he couldn't bring himself to lift them. He wasn't able to see anything other than blinding golden light the color of Tails' fur, and he was barely able to hear anything from the sound of roaring wind in his ears. He felt like his entire body was weighed down by something heavy, and the rain from the thundering skies above him drenched him as it poured down on him heavily, made all the worse by the rain getting caught in the wind and sent towards him at over 500 miles per hour. With his face drenched in rainwater, he was afraid to breathe, keeping his mouth closed tightly as his nose was made wet by the raindrops. He couldn't imagine his situation getting any worse.

Holding his breath for over a minute, he felt like he was about to pass out, and realized to his horror what might happen if he did. Would Tails notice that he was passed out when the wind blowing against him was covered in blinding yellow light? How long was he going to keep him pinned to the ground from his fear of getting struck by lightning? How long was he going to survive? Getting scared that Tails would drown him unintentionally, he focused his mind on one single wish, and mentally cleared the skies of its dark thunderclouds, stopping the rain within seconds and causing the sunlight to return to the Mystic Ruins. Gasping for air and wishing he could fight back against the wind enough to at least dry himself off, he could hear Tails saying something in response, but it was muffled by the sound of the wind being forced out of his glowing hands. Miles was humiliated, helpless, terrified beyond measure, soaking wet from his head to his shirt to his boots and freezing, shivering from the cold wind blowing away the water from his fur. He didn't think the situation could get any worse.

Miles screamed in pain when a white mitt with spikes on its knuckles punched him in the gut, bruising it and creating two puncture wounds from the spikes that bled through his red shirt. Confused and terrified at Knuckles suddenly showing up, he gasped at his presence, and when the golden light and roaring winds both subsided, he clutched his chest in pain in the hopes that it would stop the bleeding, and shouted in a panic, " Okay, okay, you've won, I'll stop, I'll stop! I never should've shown up in the first place! It was a mistake! Please! Don't hurt me! PLEASE! " with a desperate begging tone by the end of it that sounded choked up.

Knuckles was standing tall above him looking angry and unforgiving. He would've gladly continued with the beating and taken out all of his protective rage against him, if he hadn't stopped to listen and taken a closer look at him. Despite his distinctive turtleneck shirt with the black and white square design in the center, his red and gray boots, and the dyed black neat tuft of hair with silver streaks that was almost covering his head, when he looked as frightened as he did at that moment, he reminded him of Tails. Worst of all, he reminded him of Tails when he first met him, when he still remembered being bullied for his mutation and was terrified of him, seeing him as just another bully. Miles had a haunted expression on his face with his pupils shrunken, and it was clear that he had no intentions of trying to defend himself. He was soaking wet, drenched in rainwater from head to toe, and looked freezing cold and pale, clutching his chest in pain. It only took one look at the spikes on his mitts for him to realize why he was so hurt. Seeing what looked so much like one of his closest friends terrified, trembling, bruised and bleeding, immediately overwhelmed his conscience and caused him to show him mercy, in spite of the fact that he strongly believed he didn't deserve it.

Wanting to still look tough while showing him mercy, Knuckles crossed his arms resentfully and put his foot on his chest to hold him to the ground, preventing him from getting up as Sonic ran towards Tails in a blue blur, lifted him into his arms and ran off into the distance at the speed of sound, carrying him away to a place where he would feel safe.

As Miles frantically wiped the water from his face to dry himself off, he sighed sadly, ashamed of his loss. He was unlucky to have Knuckles show up, but ultimately, he blamed himself. He had been undone by his own arrogance, his inability to resist the temptation to give a triumphant and epic speech to Tails explaining his powers, a speech that was turned against him because it allowed Tails to realize that he had just as much potential as him. Because he had to open his big mouth, he opened the door to the possibility of Tails discovering more of his powers as an air kitsune and becoming more powerful than ever before. He wondered if it was because of Scourge's influence that he wanted to make that speech and make himself look cool in the first place. He couldn't imagine being that way before he met him. But whether it was his fault or not, it didn't matter. All that mattered was that he would never be able to defeat Tails alone when he had friends to protect him. Tails had friends. Miles didn't. He was all alone.

Knuckles reluctantly took his shoe off his chest to allow him to struggle to his feet, and said resentfully, " Well, well, well, if isn't Anti-Tails. Not satisfied with your own dimension, huh? You're just as power greedy as Scourge! Hope you're proud of yourself. I bet our other evil counterparts are gonna show up, too! " There was a silence as Miles finally succeeding in standing up, clutching his chest in pain and feeling even more worse from being compared to Scourge. He reluctantly admitted, " Actually, I-I… Y-You won't be seeing the Suppression Squad with me anymore… " He sighed sadly with downcast eyes, thankful that he was just barely able to keep his voice from cracking at the last sentence.

Not understanding the implications of what he said, Knuckles said, " So you drove them away? Good! It's probably _your_ fault that they left you in the first place! You're an obnoxious little _brat!_ " Miles flinched with a hurt look when Knuckles started saying his final sentence and he anticipated being called the worst possible insult again, only to open his eyes stunned and relax his shoulders while looking at him in untrusting irritation. Not realizing what Miles' reaction meant, Knuckles continued without stopping, " Serves you right for being such a stuck-up snob all the time! Why can't you be more like Tails and be nice and humble? You _deserve_ to be alone. "

Miles gasped. That was exactly what one of his bullies had said to him. As his eyes started stinging with tears, he tried to force himself not to cry as he turned away from him. The words hit him hard, and it wouldn't have hurt so much if he didn't feel like he was right. " _It's my fault they're gone. I couldn't save them! I couldn't save them! I failed…_ " he thought. Knuckles said in a voice full of hatred, " Don't you _ever_ think about hurting him again! I won't go so easy on you next time! Remember that! " and ran away in a red blur to catch up with Sonic and Tails, leaving him alone and miserable. " It should've been me… " he said sadly, trying to compensate for the cracking of his voice with an ultimately failed attempt at an expression of bitter anger.

As soon as Knuckles left the Mystic Ruins, Miles slowly walked into Sonic and Tails' house clutching his bleeding chest tightly, found his way to their washroom cabinet, and helped himself to their First Aid Kit, taking off his turtleneck sweater of a shirt to put some gauze on the bleeding cuts on his chest and then dry himself off with a towel. After that was taken care of, he washed the red stains off his wet gloves, carefully took them off with a miserable expression on his face, and picked up his shirt and carried it to the couch along with his gloves, wanting to have both of them immediately available to him when he was ready to leave the house.

The situation he was in did nothing but bring back even more memories of when he was alone, reminding him of all the times he broke into people's houses when they were unoccupied to have food, water, medical supplies, and a warm place to sleep if it was the winter, and while he loved feasting on all the food in the fridge while watching the Discovery Channel and having an actual bed to sleep in for once, he still always had the lingering fear that at any moment, the owners of the house would start trying to enter their house again and call the police at every one of their doors being locked. He couldn't afford for that to happen while he was sleeping, and lucky for him, it never did, not that he had any family members to bail him out of jail. If it were up to the people of Coconut Island, they would've kept him locked up forever, and intentionally made it so that he starved to death. He had resorted to being a thief and a squatter out of necessity, not being able to survive the winter any other way, but all it did was give the people even more excuses to hate him and dedicate their police force to hunting him down.

He was in the same situation as he was before, only worse, because this time, the police force that Sonic would call up would send him to an interdimensional prison, and for all he knew, Scourge was still there, waiting to take revenge on him. Miles wasn't sure how much longer he could last. What cruel irony it was that the heroes of the world he was in were the absolute last people he could rely on to help him.

After staggering over to the living room, sitting on the couch, and resting his legs on top of a pillow to keep them elevated, he covered himself over with the blankets to try to warm himself up, and laid down on Sonic's couch for some much needed rest, trying to sleep off the weariness of his blood loss. He spent an hour with the TV on to distract him as he tried to get his strength back, feeling weakened and exhausted from both the fight itself and the fact that he had been injured from it.

Miles was terrified of Sonic and Tails returning home and attacking him upon seeing him in their home, but he was too tired and shaken from the experience to want to go anywhere else. He could barely stand without feeling like he had a head rush and having his vision obscured by red dots, and was lucky he managed to force himself to walk and blindly stumble to the couch in such a state. And with him being so on edge whenever he was in public, he didn't want any civilians he passed by to catch him in such a physically and emotionally vulnerable state. So he laid on Sonic's couch with his eyes closed for an hour as he tried to pull himself together, sniffling and drying his eyes as he waited for his puncture wounds and bruises to stop overwhelming him with pain. He knew that Sonic and Tails would figure out someone had snuck into their home after he left, since they'd see that the towel in the washroom was wet and lying on the floor, the First Aid Kit was now devoid of gauze, he had tracked some water into the house from when he was still dripping wet, the TV was on an educational channel, and the pillows, blankets and remote control of the TV had been moved to different locations. But as long as he wasn't anywhere near the house by the time they figured out he had been there, he would escape their potential retribution.

After an hour and ten minutes, Miles could finally work up the motivation to force himself off the couch with a moan, walk out of the house still looking tired, put his gloves and shirt back on, and leave the Mystic Ruins, hiding his injuries by covering them and the gauze over them with the sweater he used for a shirt. He knew that it was stained with blood anyways, but he hoped that it being red would at least make that impossible to notice from a glance, and that if it was noticed, he would at least get sympathy for it, rather than being seen as an easy target.

Wandering Station Square alone, wondering what to do with his life, he overheard some criminals talking about the presence of Scourge the Hedgehog in Night Babylon, the seedy inner city area far to the north of Central City. The area was overrun by criminals, most notably criminal gangs, and they were the type of small-scale thieves and muggers that Sonic and his friends simply didn't have the time to focus on stopping when they had Eggman to deal with. By listening into their conversation, it didn't take long for Miles to learn that all of the gangs were either terrified of Scourge or terrified of Scourge and working for him.

Recognizing it as a sign, Miles reluctantly and bitterly decided to try to join Scourge once more, not only to increase his chances of defeating and besting Tails, but to make it so that he was no longer alone in a world that didn't accept him, and would have things to distract him from just stewing in his own guilt. As he reluctantly walked down the sidewalk on his way to Night Babylon, being careful to walk at a slow speed so as not to agitate his injuries and cause them to start bleeding again, he thought, " _Well, it's better than being alone… I suppose…_ "

* * *

Author's Notes: That's right everyone, I'm back! For one more story! And I have a major announcement. I'm going to be starting a Let's Play channel with my username and avatar where I'm gonna be doing post-commentary over Sonic and Zelda games, starting with Sonic 1 and Zelda 1. I'll be posting a part every day, and, I have a lot of fun recording commentary of games because it's an opportunity for me to talk about games I'm passionate about, and vent out my frustrations at them when they do stuff wrong. So I have fun, even if the process of recording and all of the audio editing can be annoying. So if you want, check it out and maybe you'll get some enjoyment out of them. I do a lot of editing to save my audience time and keep the LP from going on so long that I run out of commentary, although since I can go on for a really long time about all sorts of different topics, and tend to have a list of trivia written down in the case of an emergency, I won't really have to worry about running outta stuff to say.

I'm not always an expert at the games, especially certain Sonic games (cough)Sonic 2!(cough), but if I let myself be a perfectionist about trying to get the perfect playthrough, then I'd never end up recording a playthrough at all, or it'd take forever to record even one. The footage is just a vehicle for the commentary, to me, it's just an excuse for me to talk about games I'm interested in. So, while I won't always complete them 100%, you should still at least give my LPs a shot, because it's a good opportunity to see me express what I think of the games.


	2. Chapter 2

While searching for Scourge's possible hideout, Miles walked through an alley looking for a possible hidden entrance, and was quickly surrounded by a gang of muggers. " There's an easy target! Get him! " the tallest mugger said, and the three criminals pulled out various weapons while glaring at him. Backed up against the wall in fear, Miles was about to be grabbed and pinned to the wall before Scourge homing-attacked all of the muggers in rapid succession. " It's Scourge the Hedgehog! Run! " the leader of the gang shouted fearfully, and it was fortunate for him that he didn't decide to chase him down as he made a break for it with the other criminals. He had Miles to deal with, and he couldn't let him get away from him just because he decided to chase after less important foes.

As soon as the criminals left their sight, Scourge immediately turned his head to face Miles and gave him a dirty look with his fists clenched, causing him to back up against the wall again and break out in a cold sweat, wondering if he had made a mistake. Suddenly, he heard a slightly high-pitched soft female voice call out, " Scourge, what happened?! " and was surprised by seeing a long-haired female Mobian of the fox race with red and orange fur, a black backpack, a black small tank top showing her midriff, and tight black pants with a biker-style belt on them running up to him from the commotion looking concerned. It was Fiona Fox. He had a hard time recognizing her at first because it had been several months since he last saw her and he didn't know her for very long. In her hand was a blue and green ray gun that she had stolen from Boomer a while ago, relying on it as her main weapon, and as she looked over at him in worried confusion, Miles wondered if she would end up using it on him.

She asked Scourge, " What's going on? Why's _he_ here? " looking confused as she stared at the dried blood staining two small circle-shaped areas on Miles' shirt, and wondered what had happened. He looked like he had been drenched in water from head to toe and been blow-dried by strong winds.

Scourge crossed his arms and glared at him bitterly as he answered, " Well, well, well, if it isn't the little traitor. Miles Prower himself! I'm SO glad that you decided to show your face around me again. " Putting his hands out in an attempt at a placating gesture, Miles stammered, " N-Now wait a second, hear me out! I'm not here to fight you! " shaking his head with his back pressed against the wall of the building behind him.

" I-I need your help! " Miles finally managed to blurt out, flinching in fear of him and trembling. Scourge scoffed and said angrily, " You really expect me to trust you again after what you did to me, after everything I've done for you? I took you in when you were just a five-year-old kid and I gave you a home, I gave you protection, I gave you a gang full of people who accepted you for who you were instead of beating you up and THAT is how you repaid me?! I could've left you for dead on that island! A-And maybe I _should've!_ " He slapped Miles across the face with a loud smacking sound, finally expressing the anger towards him for his betrayal that he had been forced to bottle up for so long from being separated from him for months on end. Miles only responded with even more fear, and sadness, accepting the hatred instead of fighting back. Scourge pointed at him and shouted,

" You're lucky I don't take your treacherous hide and pummel it to the ground! How do I know you're not just gonna stab me in the back the minute I let down my guard?! " Losing hope, Miles cried out, " Because I NEED you! If I do that, you won't help me! I can't afford that! Please! Give me another chance! Hear me out! " backing away from him until he could do it no more. Feeling like he was boiling with rage, Scourge pinned Miles to the wall menacingly.

" Stop! " Fiona shouted, and stood between him and Miles, leaving them staring at her in shock and bewilderment. " W-What?! Fiona?! Wh-What are ya doing?! " Scourge exclaimed, looking more surprised and confused than angry at her. Fiona told him, " Scourge, just let him talk! Maybe he has a good reason for this! He wouldn't go to you for help if he could afford to lose it! At least wait until he's finished explaining himself first! Please?... For me? " Miles' eyes widened in confusion as Fiona appeared to give him the puppy-dog eyes as she clasped her hands together and successfully changed Scourge's mind. He had seen countless examples of Scourge manipulating his girlfriends, but he'd never seen his girlfriend doing the same to him. As he witnessed Scourge's eyes dart back and forth and his face switch from irritated to nervous multiple times before sighing reluctantly, he wondered what Fiona had that the other girls didn't.

Scourge crossed his arms, which caused Miles to relax his shoulders and stop trembling, and said in a voice soaked with disdain, " _Fine…_ I'll listen to you speak. But this _better_ be _good_. " Miles quietly sighed in relief, and tried to act calm, feeling embarrassed and self-conscious about how cowardly he was acting in front of him. Attempting to maintain his usual dignified composure, he crossed his arms and explained, " I… I'm not working with the Suppression Squad anymore. I know for an _absolute certainty_ that you will never see them again. "

Scourge questioned, " How? What happened? " and wondered if Miles had gotten rid of them himself; if he had, then he had even less reason to trust him. Fiona looked concerned when his face fell and he had downcast eyes, trying as hard as he could to continue looking annoyed to hide how upset he truly felt. " They... they were… We were on our way to… another gang's hideout, and, there was a _landslide…_ " Fiona had to hold back a gasp of sympathy at realizing just how difficult it was for him to talk about what happened. He was struggling not to have his voice crack, and he was trying not to cry. He really did care about them. He finally looked him in the eyes and said, " N-None of them made it. I was the _only_ one that survived… "

There was a silence as they let it all sink in, with Miles looking at the ground and trying to return to his calm and dignified composure, blinking rapidly and irregularly to fight back potential tears. Fiona stared at him in pity. It was clear to her that the child was suffering from a serious case of survivor guilt and was holding himself responsible for the deaths of his childhood friends. She took a brief look at Scourge, and noted to her disappointment that, while he was unhappy at finding out what happened to the gang he had been with for most of his life, he still glared at Miles with a resentful look on his face, as if he was blind to his emotional turmoil. " Because you can fly? " Scourge said suspiciously, and Miles slowly nodded, still avoiding his scrutinizing glare.

Wanting desperately to change the subject from such a depressing tone, Miles continued abruptly with his arms crossed, " I attempted to gain victory over my counterpart Tails and was prevented from doing so by his comrades. In spite of all my efforts, it seems it is impossible for me to achieve my goal alone as long as he has his comrades protecting him… " Miles uncrossed his arms, and looked at him sadly as he begged, " Scourge… Please!... I have nowhere else to go… " There was a silence.

Scourge replied, " Oh, I get it. So you think that teaming up with me is gonna let you get rid of him for good? You want me and my babe here to be there to distract his friends and hold 'em back while you do your business? And you're ready and willing to join my gang and work under me again just to get a chance at it? Just like old times? " Miles looked at him nervously as he answered timidly, " Y-Yes. Just like old times… " hoping things would work out the way he wanted, and saying the final sentence quietly with a depressed tone. There was a tense silence as he let it all sink in.

" So, after all this time, you come crawling back… " Scourge commented bitterly. Fiona, hoping to persuade him, told him, " Come on, baby, he could be a big help! We could always use another gang member! Three heads are better than two, you know? "

Scourge looked skeptical of Miles before chuckling, sending his sunglasses from the top of his head to in front of his eyes, causing Miles and Fiona to relax at him being in a good mood again. " Well, if you're alright with us not fightin' him right away, then sure, " he said with a shrug of his shoulders and rolling his eyes, having no plans of ever risking getting Sonic to call the interdimensional police on him by doing what Miles requested.

Fiona smiled, only to look nervous again when Scourge backed Miles up against the wall menacingly again and warned him, pointing at him with his other hand clenched into a fist, " But I'm warning you, Miles. I haven't forgotten what you did to me. Your skinny little hide is on _thin ice._ You make ONE wrong move, and you're back on the streets. We're watching you. Capiche?! " Miles nodded nervously, breaking out into a cold sweat again at his menacing glare.

With that, Scourge turned around and started walking home, saying, " Come on, " and signalling the two of them to follow him home. Miles sighed sadly, only to feel embarrassed at realizing that Fiona caught him in the moment of weakness and clear his throat looking away before quickly walking behind Scourge to catch up with him. Fiona looked at him in pity before following behind him. She was relieved that she was able to convince Scourge to give him a second chance. She didn't want him to abandon him when he needed his help, even if he had done a lot to deserve it. She just hoped that things would work out well for all of them.

They followed Scourge through the inner city streets past some apartment buildings, a park that was falling apart, and a very low-budget school, before finally reaching what looked like a lower-class house with two bulky men sitting on the staircase in front of it. They stood up alert at seeing Miles, and Scourge quickly grabbed his wrist to pull him along as Fiona said, " Easy, boys, he's our ally now. He's allowed in, " and the guards moved out of the way of the door. Scourge added, " He's with us. But don't let him come out without us! Capiche?! " pointing at the guards while unlocking his door with the key in his other hand. The guards nodded, and allowed Miles to follow behind him and Fiona nervously as he walked into their hideout.

What seemed on the outside to be a run-down lower-class home just like any other in the area quickly revealed itself to be full of luxuries that one would expect of a mansion. It had a wooden plank floor, but the walls were painted white and the living room consisted of an HD TV with a fancy stereo system set-up, a DVD player, and two couches across from each other that both had a good view of the TV. Miles followed Scourge and Fiona into the living room with his eyes widened in shock as Scourge explained with a smug smile,

" Pretty sweet, huh? Used to belong to some fat guy until we ' borrowed ' it and got it for ourselves! Not many other ways that a house can be scored by fugitives. We score a lot of loot around these parts! Some of it we go out and steal ourselves, get ourselves a little thrill, and some of it we get as ' protection money ' from the other gangs we've dominated! Ever since Dr. Finitevus went missing, we've worked our way up to being the most dominant gang in all of Night Babylon! Any criminal gangs or organized crime that aren't working for us, I find 'em and beat 'em 'till they do! I'm the king of thieves, and with everybody and their grandma covering for us, we can do essentially whatever we want! Hail to the king, baby! " He sat down on the couch and put his arms behind his head with a satisfied smirk. While he still missed his former glory in his home dimension, being the king of the criminal underground was good enough for him, even if he wasn't actually making most of their decisions. In fact, he and Fiona were happier with their situations than they had ever been in their lives, and Scourge had learned from last time that as long as he didn't try to extend his influence to where Sonic would notice him, he wouldn't lose what he " earned. "

Miles crossed his arms and looked away while standing in front of Scourge, and looked annoyed while saying politely, " Things worked out well for you… " He wasn't comfortable with having to be polite to Scourge and refrain from doing or saying anything that could offend him. It was clear that he still regarded his overconfident and self-absorbed childhood friend with bitterness and was disdainful of having to work for him, and the knowledge that he wouldn't get away with expressing his resentment in any way was making it even worse for him. Fortunately for him, while Scourge did recognize that this was the case, he seemed to be able to appreciate his " politeness " as forced as it was and be in a good mood around him, rather than treating him with suspicion and hatred all the time, and Fiona actually seemed sympathetic of him, which he still couldn't wrap his head around. Nobody felt sorry for him, or at least never made it clear. Just thinking about it filled him with a mixture of embarrassment and bewilderment, but he still appreciated that there was at least one member of Scourge's gang that seemed to care about him.

" Just so ya know, pixel-brain, you're at the bottom rung, and you'd better get used to it. You don't just serve under me, you serve under _her!_ Whenever I'm not there to be in charge, she is! She's a good shot with the ray gun and a _natural_ at First Aid! She's a vital part of this gang, so treat her right! " Scourge said resentfully, and Miles looked away from him to keep him from seeing him roll his eyes in annoyance at being called his old insulting nickname once again. Scourge had always called him pixel-brain, for as long as he could remember, and now he had to put up with it without complaint. Well, at least it was better than Tails. " Show him to the guest room, will ya, babe? And make sure that window's completely locked. I'll be puttin' on that movie we got last night, so I'd make it quick, " Scourge said to Fiona with a wink, who said with a smile, " I will! Come on, Miles, " and walked down the left hallway while Miles followed her.

She opened the door to reveal a small empty room with a bed and nothing else. Miles had a hard time hiding his disappointment. He was expecting a lot better after Scourge told him about all the luxuries he was getting. There wasn't a piano or violin to be found, and there wasn't even a single book for him to read. Trying to cheer him up, Fiona said as she locked the window from the inside, " Sorry it's not all that great. He didn't see the point of putting much in it because we'd never have any guests. It's got a soft bed, at least! We'll get some spare clothes for you later and you can customize them to look however you want. You'll just have to write down your size for us first. It won't be so bad, Miles, I promise. "

Miles nodded and said, " Thank you, " with a small nervous smile, trying to stay polite in the face of his annoyance with Scourge. Fiona smiled in return, noticing that he at least seemed to like her if not Scourge himself. She hoped that by ensuring that the two of them got along well, she'd make his stay just tolerable enough that he wouldn't snap and betray her boyfriend again, although she didn't worry too much, having almost complete faith that he wasn't gutsy enough to try that a second time.

Fiona said, " You're welcome, Miles. We'll have more than enough food in the house to support another person. You'll probably have to eat what everyone else is eating, though, to save on food. Of course, there will be a couple ground rules, as Scourge will probably explain, like no going out without us and you have to let us use the washroom before you and so on, but as long as you're well-behaved – and you're doing a great job so far – everything will be fine. Or at least bearable. I know you're not entirely comfortable with this. "

Miles sighed. He wasn't looking forward to how careful he would have to be to avoid Scourge's wrath. He almost wondered if it was a better idea for him to just remain alone. But as long as he didn't slip up and made sure to be as well-behaved as possible, staying silent as much as he could get away with to avoid provoking Scourge, he wouldn't have to worry about angering him so much. Fiona was right. While she did appear to be defending Scourge, she at least showed Miles compassion and sympathized with him, so while she did have authority over him, he supposed he didn't mind. He smiled a little and said, " I'll be fine. I just require some time to adjust to this new situation. I… won't lie, I do miss how things were before, but being here won't be so bad. I mean… at least _you're_ kind to me. Out of all the girls Scourge has dated, you're my favorite! Granted, that doesn't mean much when I barely know you, but, still. "

Fiona giggled, and said, " Thanks! " and cheerfully ruffled the dyed-black tuft of hair on his head affectionately before turning around and walking out of the room saying, " Come on, Scourge's waiting! " with a smile. Miles was naturally embarrassed at what he perceived as being treated like a kid, and rushed to tidy up his hair that was only slightly messed up before quickly catching up with her to avoid getting in trouble. Deep down, he did appreciate the kind gesture. He just didn't like being treated like a child, as if he was being treated condescendingly and having his worth dismissed again, but for a different reason. Of course, he knew that Fiona didn't intend to make him feel patronized that way. She wasn't Scourge. Although Scourge at least humored him most of the time on his insistence on being treated like he was an adult, and only stooped to calling him a brat and treating him as such when he was especially angry with him.

As he followed Fiona back to the living room and reluctantly laid down on the other couch while Fiona sat beside Scourge to watch a movie he was completely uninterested in, he wondered if things really wouldn't be as bad as he feared. Scourge wasn't going out of his way to antagonize him. He was acting smug as usual, and that was obnoxious, but he wasn't doing it to annoy him. He seemed perfectly content to wait until he was provoked to mistreat him, and he was doing a fine job of not provoking him. Scourge had already made the rules clear; put him and Fiona first before himself and never be rude. He was to obey all of his orders with no objections, never talk back to him, never contradict him, never leave the house without supervision, never complain to him about his situation, and eat what he was given.

He would have to keep all of his stress and resentment bottled up rather than express it and get in trouble, and the only outlet he'd have would be partaking in fights alongside his fellow gang members and fighting as viciously as possible. In fact, he looked forward to his next fight. He couldn't wait to show Scourge just how much his fighting skills had improved from the last time he saw him. He had done a lot of training with his chaos abilities, tapping into his true potential as a lightning kitsune with a natural connection to the weather. He couldn't wait to see the look on Scourge's face when he'd first see him purposely cause a thunderstorm or blizzard with his powers. But until that day came, he had nothing to do but try to be as obedient to Scourge as possible.

After the movie ended, Scourge left the house to " show his dominance to the city, " and ordered Miles to help Fiona with the laundry. Taking a look at the stains on his shirt, Fiona strained a smile and said, " Why don't you take your shirt off and get it cleaned up? It won't take long. " Miles hesitated. He didn't want her to find out what had happened to him and feel sorry for him, but Scourge had made it clear to him that an order from Fiona was to be followed, and besides, it was for the best that he get his shirt cleaned; the stains on it made criminals think he was an easy target. So he reluctantly pulled his turtleneck sweater off and handed it to Fiona, and she gasped softly at seeing the condition his lower torso was in.

There was gauze on two different small parts of his chest, as if he had suffered from puncture wounds, and the rest of his chest had a nasty purple bruise beneath the fur that looked very sore. Unable to hide her pity, she asked him, " What happened?! " Embarrassed of looking vulnerable, Miles looked at the ground and admitted, " Knuckles, " not wanting to admit anything more than that. After a second of looking at him in concern, Fiona quickly put the shirt in the washer and said to him, " You're wounded! Did you disinfect it? Let me see! " Miles nervously shook his head and backed away, saying, " N-No, I'm fine, really, " but before he could react, Fiona placed one hand on his shoulder to hold him still – causing him to jump from being startled by the physical contact - and kneeled to the floor to be at eye level with his chest, with his startled reaction making her worried all the more. She carefully took the gauze off his chest with a concerned look, and saw two circular puncture wounds that had bled through his fur as a result.

She looked worried, said, " Hold on! " and quickly pulled the First Aid Kit out of her backpack, proceeding to open it, pour disinfectant onto two balls of cotton, and walk up to him, noticing how nervous he was getting. " It's okay, Miles, I just wanna help you out. Hold still! " she said with concern as she walked up to him and soon backed him up against a wall, causing him to reluctantly sit on the basement floor, wince and squeeze his eyes shut while trembling as she carefully dabbed his wounds with the cotton balls, sending stinging pain through his chest from the disinfectant doing its job. It was only a couple seconds before it ended, but to him, it felt like an eternity, and he sighed in relief when it was over, hearing her voice soothe him, " There, there, it's okay. It's over now. Now lemme just stop the bleeding. "

He looked confused when she pulled out of the First Aid Kit an unfamiliar powder, and she explained proudly, " I nabbed this special anti-bleeding powder from the First Aid Kit of some military man! Cool, huh? " only to quickly return to looking concerned as she put the powder on more cotton balls and held them to his wounds for a couple seconds, eventually causing the slight bleeding to stop. After that, she tossed the used cotton balls over to the garbage bin and said kindly, " And now to put some fresh gauze on, and… there we go! " as she finished dressing his wounds. She put her hand on his shoulder again and said with a nervous smile, " I can't really do anything about the bruise, though, but at least your wounds are taken care of. " With that, she stood up from the floor and returned to doing the laundry as if nothing had happened, with Miles staring at her in stunned confusion before slowly getting up and assisting her.

" W-Why? " he finally said, after a dumbstruck silence. Understanding, Fiona replied, " Why wouldn't I? I'm looking out for my new teammate! Sure, you and Scourge have had some tough times and there's a rift between you now, but it doesn't change the fact that you used to be best friends. And I think you two could make up. I don't really know why I trust you when I barely trust anyone else. Maybe 'cause you're being polite… " Miles said unhappily, " Or because you feel sorry for me?... Or because I'm a child? " looking ashamed.

Fiona knew that he was right, but reassured him, " Don't worry about it, Miles. It doesn't matter _why_ I have faith in you. What matters is that I do. So even though Scourge doesn't really like you right now, just know that you have me to support you. I know how hard this is for you, adjusting to being on his side again, but you're not alone. " There was a silence as Miles let it all sink in, taking in what she said to him with a sad look on his face. No one treated him that kindly, especially not the girlfriend of someone he betrayed. He wasn't sure what to think of her sincere compassion and forgiveness. All he was sure about was that he appreciated it, no matter how surprising and confusing it was. He had always seen Fiona as an enemy, as the girl who always stood by Scourge and went along with everything he did with a smirk on her face, but he had never seen what she was like when she was just around her friends, when she was in a good mood, rather than intimidating her enemies and looking self-assured. Things might not be so bad after all. He did have to return to putting up with Scourge ordering him around and taking his bad mood out on him, but things weren't as bad as they could be.

When Scourge and Fiona went to bed on the first night that Miles was staying with them, Scourge sat down on the bed and said suspiciously, " I still don't trust him, you know. Do you think he lied about what happened to my old gang? What if he got rid of them himself and is plannin' on doin' the same thing to me? " Fiona looked sad, and explained, " Scourge, he's telling the truth. Don't you remember how upset he was when he told you what happened to them? His eyes were watering, he was blinking a lot, and his voice almost cracked more than once. He was trying as hard as he could not to cry!... I think that's a pretty big sign. If he was faking being upset, he wouldn't have reacted the way he did. He wouldn't have been trying to hide it. "

Hearing that caused Scourge to look stunned, and if she didn't know any better, she'd almost think that he was worried. Miles had never faked crying, because he couldn't stand looking weak in front of other people even if it would get him what he wanted. Scourge seemed to be in deep thought, and Fiona wondered if he was genuinely feeling sorry for him.

" Y-You're right. He wouldn't fake something like that. He wouldn't ever wanna look that weak in front of me, no matter how manipulating he was trying to be. M-Maybe he wasn't lying about what killed them… But that doesn't mean he's not plotting against us. You can tell he's not satisfied with this. He hates working for me, and one of these days, he's gonna snap! I can tell. Years of hating me won't just go away because he's told to behave. " Scourge said resentfully. Fiona sat down beside him and put her arm around him to pull him close to her in a sideways hug, and said encouragingly, " That's not gonna happen, baby. We'll watch him like a hawk! "

She let go and said with a loving smile, " Besides, I don't think he outright hates you. Sure you two have some rough history together, but that doesn't mean things can't get better! We haven't always got along! Even we've had a few fights here and there! And now here we are! Better than ever! " Scourge looked worried and skeptical, and replied, " True, but… " Fiona reminded him, " When I got you out of that No Zone jail, there was some tension between us, and I honestly worried it was over, but everything managed to turn out great! " Scourge looked away with downcast eyes and sighed. He didn't like being reminded of that, the day he almost lost her forever, and all because of some stupid fight.

He remembered what happened after he left her alone, leaving to find Dr. Finitevus without her. As he ran at the speed of sound through the grassy field, his mood became incredibly worse as he was filled with nothing but growing stress. He was all alone. He was in danger, running away from an interdimensional prison as a fugitive, and he was completely alone, and it was all his fault. All because he wanted to protect her.

He was so distracted that he failed to notice one of Eggman's giant robots landing in front of him with a jetpack, and by the time he realized what was happening, he had run right into it, slamming into its metal casing with a loud banging sound. " Arrgh! What the hell, man?! " he complained, falling backwards and quickly forcing himself to sit up while holding his forehead in pain.

Getting up with some fresh new bruises, he was barely able to stand himself up before the robot smacked him in the chest with its iron arm and sent him flying backwards from the impact, adding plenty of cuts to his injuries. As the robot walked up to him as quickly as it could manage, Scourge tried to ignore the stinging pain as he rolled over on his back, and just before it could slam the steel club it was holding into him, he curled up into a spindash and launched forwards at the speed of sound, spindashing forwards and turning to the right to slam into the robot at high speed. He then proceeded to furiously homing-attack it rapidly from behind as the robot was knocked over, and it repeatedly smacked at him with its steel club while struggling to get up.

It wasn't long before the robot was reduced to oil and scrap metal, but with its final attack, it succeeded in slamming Scourge with its steel club and sending him flying to the side of it as it completely broke down at last. He groaned, lying on the ground with his head to the side and covered in bruises and bleeding cuts, feeling sore and sensitive all over, and struggled to get up, trying to ignore the growing fear that at least one of his bones was damaged and he wouldn't be able to get the proper medical attention for it. " Damn it!... Damn it all! I was so close! " he complained bitterly, with his voice cracking at some points. As he tried and failing to get himself up, he wondered if he was going to die, or if the No Zone police would find him first and cruelly heal him just to bring him back to a life in prison.

But just as he was about to give in and pass out, he heard a familiar female voice call out to him frantically. " Scourge! " He opened his eyes immediately, and gasped at seeing Fiona rush to his side, completely devoid of all of the anger she had towards him from their previous argument. She quickly took off the black backpack that she was wearing, unzipped it, and pulled out a First Aid Kit, which she proceeded to place on the ground and open up while saying, " Hold on! " in concern. She pulled out of it a bottle of powder that she got onto some cotton balls by shaking it upside-down and having it fall through the holes in its lid, and explained, " It's some special anti-bleeding powder. I've heard they use this stuff in the military, so I got some really good loot! " she said as she stopped the bleeding of his various cuts, in that soft and loving but mischievous tone that he loved so much.

When she was halfway done, she explained unhappily while holding powdered cotton to various parts of his injured chest, " I'll have to disinfect them afterwards. You don't wanna escape from prison just to get a lethal infection! You got it, baby? " Scourge nodded unhappily while avoiding looking her in the eye, ashamed of her seeing him that vulnerable, and confused that she was going to such lengths to help him after the way he treated her. After pouring from a bottle of disinfectant onto some cotton balls, she warned softly, " This might sting a bit, " and Scourge squeezed his eyes shut, grimaced and hissed quietly to deal with the pain as she dabbed his cuts with disinfectant-covered cotton, trying to be as quick about it as possible. He was in pain, but he couldn't bring himself to hold it against her. If anything, he felt like he deserved it. He was lucky she wasn't causing him pain as revenge.

" It's over, " she said quickly at last, and he sighed in relief as she discarded the cotton balls onto the ground, tossed away the empty bottle of disinfectant, and said unhappily, " There's barely any bandages left, so I'll cover the worst of it here. We'll steal some more supplies later, " while bandaging the wound on his forehead. At last, she held out her hand and said kindly, " Want some help up? " She had a smile on her face, but there was sadness in her eyes, a strong reminder of what had recently happened between them. After a brief hesitation, Scourge took her hand and allowed her to pull him up to a standing position, feeling like he was in her debt. " I-I'll be fine, Fiona, uh… Thanks, " he said at last, sounding nervous and trying to force annoyance into his tone to save face after spending several minutes looking either in pain or stunned at her kindness.

" No problem! " she replied happily, proud of her skill at treating his injuries. " I-I didn't think you would catch up with me, or that you'd want to at all, " he said, making no effort to hide his nervousness that time. " Come on, baby, of course I would! Sure, we had a bit of a fight, but I'll always have your back! " she said cheerfully, just relieved that he'd be okay and she got to him in time. Not able to stand it anymore, Scourge finally looked her in the eyes, revealing how upset he was, and with his body language getting more nervous and fidgety, he awkwardly stumbled his way through an apology.

" A fight, yeah… About that… I-I hope you didn't take it personally, Fiona. It wasn't anything against you. It was just a really stressful situation I was in, and the last thing I wanted was for anything to happen to either of us. You took a really big risk by going to such trouble to bust me out, when you could've just left me there and saved yourself the trouble, and I was under such stress and so, _furious_ at everything that was happening to me in there, that I took it out on you when you were getting me all worried and worked up and… You didn't deserve that. You care about me so damn much that you went through all that trouble for me, and even though it was risky, it worked, and that's all that matters. All that matters is that now we're out, we're free, and we can do whatever we want with that freedom! And it's all thanks to you. Thanks, babe! "

He smiled and gave her a thumbs-up, and said happily, " I may be able to handle myself most of the time, but that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with getting help. Makes my life easier, and from what you proved, it makes it easier to stay alive. I guess I could survive on my own, but it wouldn't be nearly as good without you! You're the best girlfriend I could ever ask for! You're not all high-maintenance expecting big romantic dates at expensive restaurants. You join in on the fun and break the law with me, and instead of holding me back, you make everything all the better! You're hot and you're cheerful, you're great at cheering me up, and obviously you're a _great_ kisser! You're a great shot with ray guns and stuff like that, you're a natural at First Aid, I can barely imagine my life without you! W-What I'm sayin' is, I take back what I said before. I want you to stay with me… If you still want to, " looking sad at the last sentence.

After a brief silence where she let it all sink in, Fiona went from stunned to having a great big smile and embraced him in a hug as she laughed happily, almost crying tears of joy. " Oh, I knew you wouldn't leave me! I never lost faith! " she exclaimed. Scourge winced a little from his chest and back being sore, but it was all worth it, as he soon began to smile despite the pain and return the embrace with a chuckle. He finally had her back. And he was never going to lose her again.

" Oh, uh, I'm sorry, are you sore? " Fiona said with concern, finally remembering his cuts and bruises that she was now pressed up against. " Don't worry about it, babe. It's worth it, " he said quietly with a pleased tone.

Finally able to bring herself to say it again, Fiona said happily, " Oh, Scourge… I love you more than anyone else in the world! " no longer nervous about admitting it to him because she knew for a fact that it was mutual. " Love ya too, babe! " Scourge said with a grin, after a brief second of embarrassed hesitation from not wanting to look weak by admitting it. He already looked weak from getting injured in front of her. He might as well be honest while he was at it. At last, she let go, and he said, " Now let's find Dr. Finitevus! Just the two of us! " and Fiona happily agreed, zipping up her backpack after putting its contents back into it and putting it back on.

When they finally made it to Dr. Finitevus' new lab in Anti-Mobius, they were shocked and disappointed at finding it completely empty. Had he been discovered and arrested? Or had something happened to him while he was gone from the house? They never found out. Fortunately for the two criminals, they managed to discover that he had actually finished an invention that was specifically designed to reverse the depowering that had affected Scourge, and after using it to return to full power, he decided that if they couldn't find Dr. Finitevus, they would find their own way, and make their own future. It was after a long time of wandering the streets of various cities stealing and breaking into buildings to get by that they eventually stumbled upon a potential home for themselves in Night Babylon, and found what would become their new hideout.

Even though the two of them had their disagreements and had nearly broken up, they were able to make up and end up closer than ever. Scourge smiled at last as Fiona reassured him, " If the worst of fights can't break us up, then you and Miles can make up with each other, too! It'll just take a while, that's all. " While he didn't believe that Miles and him could ever reconcile and become close friends again, it still cheered him up remembering how much things could improve for him when it all seemed bleak. She might have a point. And even if Miles didn't start being nice to him at any point, he still was more polite to him than he ever was before, and that alone was enough of an improvement.

Weeks followed of them working together. Miles showed Scourge his new powers in the first fight he assisted him with, terrifying the muggers threatening them by shooting a bolt of lightning at them, and then repeating the same thing he did with Tails and sending thousands of sharp icicles hurling towards the criminals, pinning their clothes to the wall and scaring them into submission as a thunderstorm raged on above their heads. " That was awesome! Looks like I was right to take you back after all! '' Scourge exclaimed with an impressed grin, and briefly pulled him close in a sideways hug while saying proudly, " Keep it up! " Instead of being intimidated by the powers of a potential traitor, Scourge was impressed. And instead of being disappointed, Miles found himself smiling at being genuinely complimented by him, and at the affection that he showed him for the first time in years.

Fiona usually accompanied Miles and Scourge as they ran through the city looking for criminals to intimidate and tourists to steal from or con, but as she did before Miles showed up, she always spent three hours every afternoon researching medical attention from books and using her knowledge to answer questions about it on homework sheets. She retrieved both the books and the homework from borrowing copies of them from a woman going through university to become a doctor that she happened to break into the house of one day, and she was thankful that she was able to convince her to help her, giving her copies of her books and homework whenever she visited her in exchange for not getting her in trouble with the police. The doctor-in-training mainly did it out of the idealistic hope that Fiona would become a doctor from her help and leave her life of crime, not realizing that she was educating herself to become a better nurse for the criminal gang she was a part of.

Scourge was always the one who spent the most time out of everyone running through the streets of the city, being feared as the Green Blur as he ran not only all over Night Babylon, but broke the law in other parts of the inner city as well. While he always returned home for lunch and dinner, he often left home after dinner to spend a few more hours going through the city. Miles wasn't brought with him when he ran through the city in the late evening, for two reasons. One, as Scourge told him condescendingly, was that he was a child, and as Miles would've put it, needed to adhere to a strict early bedtime to operate at maximum effectiveness, or as Scourge put it, " little brats need their sleep! " As a result, his curfew was 7:00, which annoyed him, not from the fact that he was told to go to bed early, as he agreed with the concept, but because he was given that early bedtime as a way for Scourge to assert his authority and supposed superiority over him. As soon as the clock hit 7:00, he wasn't allowed out of his room. He usually went to bed early anyways for practical reasons, but the fact that he was forced to as a rule still irritated him.

The other and more important reason for the curfew was that Scourge felt like he needed to prove to the criminals of the city that he was still a threat even while he was fighting them alone, and always having Miles and Fiona with him would put a damper on that, implying that he was reliant on them. So while Scourge left home after dinner and didn't return home until 9:00, Miles had to stay home, and spent his time reading educational books, reluctantly reading it in Scourge's room with Fiona doing her own research nearby because he wasn't allowed to be unsupervised during the day.

Just as Scourge had explained, Miles had to partake in the same meals as everyone else, meals that were varied, delicious, and were a nice middle ground between nutritious and unhealthy, with Scourge not liking vegetables and the like and preferring meats such as ribs, steak, and fried chicken. After a week and a half of working for them and being well-behaved, Miles was given permission to have his favorite drink, herbal tea with milk and sugar, after dinner every day. Fiona was in charge of cooking, and she was also in charge of the household chores, although Scourge made it clear to Miles that he was expected to help out with the chores as well, and that combined with Miles being brought with Scourge on his runs through the city made it so that the only free time he had was the few hours of every day when he was reading along with Fiona. Miles was annoyed by how busy his schedule always was and how little time he had for doing what he wanted, and all Fiona could say to reassure him was that, " At least this way, you're never bored. You've always got something to do! "

The three of them went out stealing and fighting various criminals on a daily basis, being regarded as both heroes and villains by the civilians, hunting down any criminals who weren't working under them by searching through the alleyways ready to attack any potential rivals, and stealing from any rich-looking people or tourists that they could by taking advantage of Fiona's electricity-shooting ray gun and Scourge and Miles' super speed. Fiona used her ray gun taser, Scourge used his super speed, homing-attack and spindash, and Miles took advantage of his weather powers, controlling lightning, the wind, hail, rain, and even concentrated heat waves from the sun. Together, the three of them were unstoppable. At times, Scourge regretted abandoning the Destructix from not thinking he needed them and wanted to live a life of crime with just Fiona at his side. But with Miles back in his life, he realized it was the right decision. Miles wouldn't have been happy having to deal with the Destructix as his teammates when they didn't like him very much and they probably would've caused him to lash out at them or leave. He was at his most satisfied when there were at most two other people in his social group, and it was easy to tell, as while there were still plenty of moments when he was annoyed with Scourge, he adjusted to his situation earlier than he anticipated, and was able to be thankful for it.


	3. Chapter 3

After breaking into a mansion northeast of Night Babylon that they thought was unoccupied, Miles and Scourge ended up being locked in a large safe together by the owner, unable to get out. They immediately tried knocking the door down, only to quickly realize that the door was made of fire-resistant steel and that knocking it down was pointless. Scourge shouted, " You'll pay for this! You hear me?! I'll send all of my lackeys after you the minute I get outta here! Half the criminals in Night Babylon will be after you when I'm out! " furious as the owner of the house ran off to the living room to call the police.

Looking panicked and hiding it with anger, Scourge ordered Miles, " Well, what are you waiting for?! Burn it down! " pointing at the steel door blocking their way out. Miles replied nervously, " I can't! All I can do is cause heat waves! " Scourge told him in frustration, " Come on, pixel-brain, think outside the box! If you can concentrate on heating up the door, or at least the air really close to it, you'll be able to warm it up to the point where it melts! "

Getting nervous at the risk he was being told to take and hiding it by acting angry, Miles responded, " How do you know that I can even concentrate my powers on such a miniscule amount of air in the first place? If things go wrong, I'll end up heating up the entire safe and us along with it! It's not worth the risk! " Scourge shouted in frustration, " Yes it is! If you don't stop being a coward and do something to get us out, we'll be hauled off to jail the minute the cops show up! And what if the interdimensional cops find us when the news mention what happened to us? I'm not going back to prison! I'm NEVER going back to prison! And if you don't do something, you're going there with me! Now stop talking back to me and do what I say! "

" You always have to order me around, don't you?! Why can't you at least try to be nice about it instead of acting like a bully?! " Miles complained, lashing out at him at last from the stress of the situation. " A bully?! What- wh-WHY do you have to be such a brat?! " Scourge yelled back at him.

With the tension of them potentially being doomed to get arrested and caught, Scourge and Miles quickly ended up getting into a several minute-long argument over whose fault it was that they were trapped in that situation.

Fed up with Scourge not listening to his points, Miles shouted angrily, " Fine! Ignore me! It's what you've always done! " Scourge looked irritated and confused, and said defensively, " What are you talking about?! "

Miles scoffed and replied bitterly and quickly with his arms crossed, " Oh, just go back to spending all your time running around on your own chasing girls! You haven't changed a bit! " Angry and confused, Scourge responded, " Yeah I _have!_ I haven't chased girls since I started dating Fiona! I already found the perfect chick, why would I chase after someone else? And since when did you ever have a problem with me doin' stuff without you?! You never complained before! "

This seemed to set Miles off, and he ranted at him, " I shouldn't HAVE TO complain! It should've been obvious from the start! All you ever did back on Moebius was do your own thing as if I'm not even there! Meanwhile I'm sitting at home completely alone wondering where the hell you are and why you expected me to believe that we're _friends!_ We used to spend _all day_ together every day of the week just the _two_ of us but the _instant_ you got friends other than me, you dropped me like a hot _coal!_ But oh yeah, I have no reason to resent you for ditching me at all, it's not like my parents _abandoned_ me at birth or anything! Oh wait, they _did!_ How could you not know that I didn't want you to treat me that way?! You had known me for over a _year!_ You know me better than anyone else in the WORLD! How could you not know I'd be upset about that?! You _selfish_ arrogant jerk! Maybe if you weren't so self-absorbed and only thinking about yourself you would've actually realized how that would've _affected_ me! "

For most of Miles' rant, Scourge was listening with an angry expression that progressively started to become forced, trying to continue looking angry with him when he was having a hard time not feeling guilty from his words. He never realized that he wasn't being a good friend to Miles. With neither of his parents caring enough to show him any real affection and him never having friends before, Scourge had never had any frame of reference for the proper way to treat a loved one. He knew that things had changed between them after he got invited to join the Anti-Freedom Fighters, but he didn't think it was his fault that Miles became resentful of him. He thought it was just the natural result of him growing older and wanting to be seen as mature and independent from him, thinking he was better than him as a result of getting his confidence back up. Finding out exactly how his behavior had affected Miles made him regret doing it without thinking, and with him knowing Miles as well as he did, hearing him remind him about his abandonment issues and reveal how he was triggering them felt heartbreaking. But while he did regret straining their once ideal friendship, there was something holding him back from swallowing his pride and apologizing to him. It was frustration; he was frustrated with himself for not realizing the consequences of his actions and with Miles for not telling him about them sooner. And when Miles called him selfish, those frustrations came to a head, and he snapped at him immediately, too prideful to look weak by admitting he was in the wrong.

" I'M selfish?! When's the last time I heard about _you_ worrying about anyone?! You don't think about anyone but _yourself!_ You call yourself a deep thinker but all you think about is you, you, you! _Your_ problems, _your_ experiences, _your_ opinions, and your feelings! What about everyone else?! There's a whole entire world out there aside from just you and you don't care about it! Sure, _I'm_ selfish for the most part, but at least I don't insult people for being that way! At least I admit it! You're such a hypocrite! And you're calling me a selfish friend after _everything_ I did for you? How _dare_ you! I gave you a home, I saved your life– more than once, in fact! And I was the first person to ever treat you with respect. I took on the responsibility of a child when I was _12 years old,_ lettin' him into my home and payin' out of my own pocket to keep him there! I dedicated my life to making you as happy as possible and trying to make up for how awful it was before. You call that selfish?! "

Miles was turned away from him with a bitter expression at the start of Scourge's reply, but as soon as he started to remind him of how much he really owed to him, he looked sad with downcast eyes, still having his arms crossed to hide his true feelings. The final sentence hit him hard, and he had to force back tears as a result, being overwhelmed by a combination of guilt and longing for what a kind friend Scourge used to be.

Scourge continued, " If I was nothing but selfish, I wouldn't have saved you from those scumbags at _all!_ You were the most important person in my _life_ until you betrayed me. All I _ever_ _cared_ about was _you!_ As soon as I met you, it wasn't _about_ me anymore! And sure I stopped spending all my time with you after we got other friends, but WE HAD OTHER FRIENDS! I thought you'd be just as happy with _them!_ I thought you wouldn't mind me doing stuff without you! How the hell was I supposed to know you wanted to hang out with _me_ most of the time and not any of your other friends? Because you _had_ other friends, you know! Alicia, Patch, Boomer, remember them? If you wanted to go along with me instead of spending all your time alone, you should've just SAID SO! Not my fault you won't tell me what's wrong! Not _my_ fault you keep everything to yourself and keep everyone on a _constant_ need-to-know basis! You started acting all snobbish and insulting to me and giving me the cold shoulder and you never told me _why,_ so how was I supposed to know what I was expected to do?! Excuse me for assuming you were just getting _older_ and stopping liking me because of it! Why would I ever think it'd be a good idea to ask you if you wanted to hang out with me when you acted like you couldn't _stand_ being _around_ me?! You could've just told me what I was doing wrong and I would've listened to you! But instead you just kept it all bottled up inside and instead of telling me what was the matter, you betrayed me! You think you're the only one who misses when it was just the two of us? You think I wouldn't have wanted to try to get that back too? It's not my fault that things kept being the way they were because you didn't tell me what was wrong! We could've _fixed_ things _years_ ago! Why the hell didn't you _tell_ me?! " Scourge yelled, taking all of his frustration out on him.

Furious, Miles turned around in an instant and ranted passionately with an angry but hurt expression, " Don't you _dare_ try to act like it's all my fault! If you _really_ cared about me, you would've _never_ stopped spending most of your time with me AT ALL! You wouldn't have even considered the idea in the first place! So what if you raised me?! If it can even be called that! All you did for most of your life was neglect me! You're just like your parents! In fact, you're even worse! At least they were busy with work, at least they had an excuse for neglecting YOU! You had NO excuse! Just admit it, Scourge, you never wanted me as your friend at all! You never liked me! No one _ever_ liked me, I should've KNOWN! You just pretended to be my friend so you could have someone to hang out with and take advantage of and the instant you got some other friends for me, you shoved me on them and ran like hell! And you expect me to believe that we're friends?! All you ever did was use me! And then the instant you didn't need me anymore you _forgot_ me! And then when I started to hate you for it you treated me like a spoiled brat throwing a temper tantrum because how dare I get angry that my _best friend_ spent a grand total of _one_ year acting like a friend and the rest of my life as a _bully!_ You barely said two words to me most of the time, and that's not even including all of the times you just threatened me or ordered me around! I shouldn't have HAD to tell you it was _wrong!_ And the fact that you kept doing it after it started straining our friendship proves my point! You don't bother to think about how your actions could upset people because you don't CARE! You don't care about _anyone_ anymore! Oh sure, maybe you _used_ to care about me, but there's no denying the fact that you _CHANGED!_ You're not my big brother anymore! It doesn't matter how compassionate you used to be because the person I owe my life to no longer exists. And now all I see is a bully! "

Completely losing it with him from being insulted that way, Scourge finally shouted, " A bully?! _That's_ what you think of me? You ungrateful brat, you're _hopeless!_ Why do I even _bother_ arguing with you when you don't listen to anyone but yourself?! You _have_ to be _so_ goddamn paranoid every time someone's nice to you or something good happens to you and you convince yourself nothing's ever that great, and then you wonder why you're _never happy!_ You don't _let_ yourself! Your life's a million times better than it was before I came in and you're so stuck in the past that you don't even _notice!_ It's like things haven't changed! I tried to make your life happier when I had never tried to do that for anyone before and the _instant_ things started to turn out the wrong way because I had no idea what I was doing, you expected me to know it was my fault?! WHY'D I BOTHER?! You could have the _best_ possible friend for the rest of your life and the instant he slips up and starts doing something wrong, you stop caring about all of the good things he's done because you get this paranoid conspiracy theory that it's because he never liked you in the first place! And then you don't tell him what he's doing wrong because you convince yourself it's too easy to work! So I made a mistake, and that's all you fixate on, to the point where everything I did for you means nothing?! What about all the things I've done _right?!_ What about all the good times we've had together?! Why do people even bother trying to be nice to you when you're too paranoid to appreciate it?! Why do I even bother trying to reason with a _brick wall?!_ You're _delusional,_ Miles! Forget it! You're gonna hold a grudge against me for the rest of our lives for something you could've easily fixed?! Well, I'm _glad_ you're going to jail, I never liked ya anyways! " adding the last sentence out of sheer spite.

There was a silence as Miles' anger completely went away, replaced with a shocked and devastated expression as Miles thought, " _How could he say that to me?!_ " He was struck speechless and turned his back to him, looking away and being close to the wall. In spite of that, Scourge was still able to move around his side and discover that there were tears running down Miles' face. The kid was heartbroken. Realizing what his callous remark had done, Scourge felt his anger melt away and fade as if it had never been real at all, and his expression of annoyance became realized with one of sadness. " Damn it, " he quietly cursed, annoyed with himself for his insensitivity.

Feeling uncomfortable, Scourge slowly moved his hand closer and closer before he finally stopped stalling and placed it on Miles' shoulder, which startled him, making him jump, tense up and gasp, preparing himself for a punch. " Hey, Miles? " he said unhappily, reluctant at what he was about to do and inwardly cursing his situation. It took a few seconds for Miles to realize that he wasn't about to hurt him. For most of his life, when someone grabbed his shoulder, it was to hold him still so they could punch him. But Scourge didn't grab his shoulder, he just placed his hand on top of it, as if he was trying to comfort him. Scourge the Hedgehog was trying to comfort him.

Miles wondered what was going on with him, but resisted the urge to try to look at his facial expression and read his intentions, because that would only reveal to him the tears running down his face and destroy all of the respect he had earned from him. " Look at me, " Scourge told him, letting go of his shoulder, and after nothing happened, he said, " That's an order, " trying to force a stern tone when his heart wasn't into it. Fearing that he couldn't push his luck anymore, Miles reluctantly, slowly turned around to face him, and was shocked at seeing that Scourge was concerned, or at least was doing an extremely good job of uncharacteristically faking it. He couldn't imagine him doing either, and was at a loss for words. Looking remorseful, Scourge apologized sadly, " I wasn't trying to, upset you like that… " being clearly nervous and uncomfortable with doing it.

Realizing that Scourge had caught him crying, Miles did whatever he could to save face, acting angry with him to try to cover up his sadness for the sake of his dignity. Miles snapped and shouted at him angrier than he had ever before, " How could you say that to me?! You think you can make it all better just like that? I don't believe you! You never cared about me, you're just a bully who was using me from the start! W-Well, I never liked you, either! How does _that_ feel?! You were the first person I ever met who didn't think of me as a freak, the only person who didn't bully me for my second tail, and I got my hopes up for you and you bullied me for everything else! You expect me to forgive you for what you said? That's the only time you were ever _honest!_ Why don't you tell me how you _really_ feel?! "

He tried to act as angry and bitter as he could, but it was clear to Scourge that the anger was only a façade, with his voice cracking and wavering at multiple points and him trying as hard as he could not to cry. He was breaking down in front of him, his angry facial expression repeatedly giving way to a heartbroken one, him shaking with what he pretended was rage, and his eyes still clearly watering despite him blinking rapidly to keep the tears from escaping them. And all Scourge did was stand there speechless, looking stunned and concerned rather than angry, or even intimidated, only being able to focus on how devastated Miles was.

It didn't take long for the tears to finally escape Miles' eyes, and when he realized that, he finally snapped and broke down crying in front of him, turning away and covering his eyes in a futile effort to preserve his dignity, quietly sobbing as he breathed in quick gasps and exhaled in short sharp breaths. And despite all that, he still attempted to act like he was just angry with him. " Hey, calm down! " Scourge exclaimed.

Sounding panicked by that point, Scourge blurted out, " I only said that 'cause I was mad! " and Miles' lack of response implied that he didn't believe him. After some hesitation, he put his hand on his shoulder again, overwhelmed by the situation and wanting it to end, and Miles immediately moved away to take it off, shouting, " Don't touch me! Leave me alone! Don't pretend you care about me! No one does! And no one ever will! " with his voice whimpering and cracking, vividly remembering how he ended up reacting to all the people who pretended to care about him just to lure him into a false sense of security.

The only people that he knew for a fact cared about him, the members of the Suppression Squad, were all gone from his life for good. But the familiar feeling of being unloved triggered him like nothing else and made him temporarily forget about them, causing him to talk like he was still in the past and had never been loved. It brought him back to his terrifying past in a heartbeat, dragging him back into his previous mindset where he was overwhelmed with sadness and anger at the world for how nobody cared about him, all because he had a second tail. Deep down, he knew he was thinking irrationally, but it didn't stop his feelings from overwhelming him and taking complete control as he was flooded with memories coming back to haunt him.

He turned to the side, miserable and overwhelmed and desperately wanting it to be over, wishing that he was alone instead of crying in front of someone and being humiliated on top of everything else. But before he could say anything else to him, Scourge moved to the front of him in a green blur, wrapped his arms around him and held him close to his chest in a warm embrace.

" Huh? " Miles said quietly. Before, he was overwhelmed with posttraumatic flashbacks and the flood of stress and anxiety that came with them, but he was snapped out of it almost instantly by finding himself held in place in a tight protective embrace, one that kept him from escaping it, but wasn't painful or worrisome. Before he knew it, he was crying into Scourge's shoulder, with the entire front of his body up against his chest and his back being covered by his arms as they held him close. He didn't try to resist the hug or tell him to stop. Overwhelmed by the feeling that he was being given exactly what he needed, he gave in completely to the kindness and compassion, as inexplicable as it seemed. There was still that paranoid part of his mind still stuck in the past and warning him to keep being wary, but he was so relieved and at peace from the embrace that he ignored it, and returned the hug at last, burying his face in his shoulder with his arms holding him close like he was frightened he would leave him if he didn't.

After a couple seconds where he let Miles adjust to what was happening, Scourge reluctantly said, " I only said that because I was mad. I didn't actually mean it. I-I've got a reputation to protect, and I don't wanna risk it by looking like I've gone soft… I mean, come on, Miles, why the hell do you think I stood up for ya when people treated ya badly for your tails? If I really never cared about ya, I would've let 'em do whatever they wanted regardless of whether you were working for me or not. We've had a lot of arguments, but I went way too far this time. Even I'll admit that. "

There was a silence as Miles let it all sink in. He was afraid to believe it. He didn't want to get his hopes up for someone again. He had already been severely disappointed when he first got to know Scourge, thinking he would make a great friend only for him to outgrow him as he got older. He didn't want to be disappointed again by letting himself believe that he had changed, that he had learned his lesson from the way he mistreated his old friends out of arrogance and ignorance.

" I-I don't believe you… I, you're not my friend… You _hate_ me… " he whimpered at last, being very ashamed of how he utterly failed to convey anger in his tone from being too choked up. Scourge was silent for a moment before saying in a serious tone, " You're sorta right. You're _not_ my _friend._ You're my _brother._ " Miles gasped softly, and immediately started thinking of Sonic and Tails, and how close their friendship always was. It had been so long since Scourge had called him his little brother.

" You're closer to family than any of my real family ever were. I've known you since you were a little tyke and I can barely remember a time where you weren't in my life! When you know someone for that long, you grow attached, no matter _how_ much of a _badass_ you are! I know that our friendship isn't as close as Sonic and Tails anymore, but there's a reason for that, Miles. I just don't wanna look like a softie, and neither do you. That, and we have our differences, so we don't think the same or do the same things with our time. But there was _no_ excuse for lying to you like that, no matter _how_ frustrated I was. I made a mistake. I regret it! I… I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. "

After another minute of letting it all sink in, Miles smiled, finally allowing him to believe him. And with that, he returned the embrace at last, and said with his voice still slightly cracking, " Thank you… bro, " enjoying it at last as Scourge smiled in relief, and started stroking his head gently back and forth with one hand and continuing to hold him close with the other, just as he had done many times before. He wasn't sure if he would ever be able to get their friendship back to being as close as it was when it first started, but now that he knew Miles wanted that, he'd be damned if he didn't at least try, even if people would discover his soft side in the process.

After Miles finally stopped crying and Scourge carefully let him go, he decided to try Scourge's suggestion at last, because it was the only way he could think of to get out of there. He concentrated a heat wave on the door itself, controlling and containing the heat indirectly by controlling exactly which areas of the air right in front of the safe would be heated up and which wouldn't. As the door began to heat up and turn red with the heat coming off from it, the closet itself began to warm up, and Miles, in a moment of desperation, took the risk of multi-tasking, cooling down the air in the closet by shaking his other hand in the reverse direction, mentally slowing down the movement of its molecules with one hand while shaking the other to increase the movement of atoms in the door, simultaneously warming something up and cooling something down. It was surprisingly difficult for him to maintain, as he had to resist the instinctive temptation to have both hands do the same thing rather than acting asymmetrically, and he had to keep both hands moving at their own individual directions consistently. But with great difficulty, he managed to do it, melting away the door as the closet alternated between warm, moderate temperature, and cold. Scourge and Miles' bodies weren't entirely sure how to react to it, as the instant they started feeling too hot, they found themselves being cooled down by cold winds, and the minute they started feeling too cold, they were hit by relieving warmth that immediately caused them to stop shivering.

At last, the door had melted to the point where the two of them were able to step over the bottom part of it and climb out of the safe. Scourge was worried the whole time that Miles would eventually completely fail to multi-task effectively and get him killed in the process, but he managed to avoid that situation, just barely. " Good job, bro! Now let's get outta here before the cops show up, " Scourge said after giving him a thumbs-up and an impressed smile. With that, he ran out of the house in a green blur, and Miles was stunned at his words before quickly snapping out of it and running after him.

Over the weeks, Scourge began to get used to Miles being with him again. While he still took it out on him when he was in a bad mood, it was purely in the form of insults, and no longer had him worrying that he would hurt him.

As Miles revealed to Scourge while telling him about his powers, he had gotten so good at controlling lightning that he developed the ability to sense it, feeling progressively more energized the closer he was to it. In fact, he revealed that he suspected he was always able to sense it, as even when he was four years old, he instinctively knew what the weather would be like and when a lightning storm was going to happen, and what the lightning would strike instead of him. He could even sense when people were nearby because he detected the electric charges in their body. He even showed some mild frustration with himself for the fact that it had taken him that long to realize he had a mental connection with electricity and the weather in the first place.

Controlling the lightning with his mind, Miles was able to gain energy from the lightning that could've hit their house in his sleep, subconsciously gathering the lightning for himself, and it was because of that ability to store extra lightning that he was able to discover that his lightning powers became far more powerful during and the day after a storm. He had always done that throughout his life, but it wasn't until he discovered the full extent of his power that he realized what he had been doing, gathering and storing energy during a storm, taking electrical energy and feeding off it. He took full advantage of that against any robots they saw and used it to intimidate various criminals after being ordered to do so by Scourge, who saw his dominance of the criminals in the city gradually get better and better at a faster rate than before because of Miles. Everyone still feared Scourge the most, but Miles, despite being a kid, quickly proved himself to the criminals to be a threat of his own, the opposite of an easy target.


	4. Chapter 4

After the ending of an action movie that Scourge and Fiona enjoyed and Miles was bored by, there was a knock on their door. Everyone walked up to the door and Fiona opened it, and one of the guards gave Scourge a piece of paper, saying, " You've got mail. " Scourge took the piece of paper and rolled his eyes. " Oh, more reading. Miles, you do it, " he said in annoyance, and lazily handed the note to Miles, who forced himself not to insult him and reluctantly told them a summary of what it said.

" A rival gang is expecting us to duel with us in the cave to the south of the Mystic Ruins. " Scourge was surprised, and said angrily, " What? What gang?! " and took the piece of paper from him, reading the name of the gang and then growling. " We'll show them! " he said in determination. He lifted Fiona into his arms and ran out of the house in a green blur, causing Miles to follow him as fast as he could.

After all of them ran through the cave for several minutes, Scourge suddenly skidded to a stop and told Miles, " Wait, stop, I hear something! " Miles said in confusion, " Huh? " and wasn't able to stop in time before running past the nearby wall and getting spotted by a giant gray robot of Eggman's. Its arm slammed into the side of Miles' head and sent him flying into the rocky wall so hard that it cracked. He fell forwards limply with his eyes closed in a pained expression, unconscious before he hit the ground, leaving a red stain on the wall where the other side of his head used to be. Fiona cried out, " Miles! " and rushed to his side.

Both sides of his head were wounded, bleeding and badly bruised, and the left side of his body was severely bruised and cut in various places on the rocky wall to the point where it was slightly bleeding through his shirt, only not bleeding more because his body was lucky enough to be fast at clotting the blood. Scourge immediately recognized the robot as a threat and started attacking it as viciously as he could, spindashing and homing-attacking it as quickly and roughly as possible in retaliation for injuring one of his gang members and frightening the other.

Fiona frantically took off her backpack, kneeled at Miles' side, unzipped her backpack, and pulled out the last roll of bandages she had. Something about seeing a kid as young as Miles so injured caused her maternal instincts to kick in and send her into a panic. Moving as quickly as she could from knowing that Miles' bleeding put her on a time limit, she turned him over on his back and bandaged his head, keeping the black tuft of hair he was so proud of visible in front of the bandages. She was worried at the blood seeping through the bandages for a bit, only to sigh in relief when they stopped. After that, she looked over at her roll of bandages, and wished that she hadn't completely used it up with him still having injuries to take care of. There was no disinfectant in the First Aid Kit at all. She would have to take care of that at home.

After very quickly taking his pulse to confirm that he was still alive, she zipped up her backpack and put it on, and while hoping he wouldn't object to it, she lifted his limp unconscious body into her arms, putting his head on her shoulder, and reassured him, " Don't worry, kiddo, I'll get you out of here. "

Her thoughts were interrupted when she heard Scourge shout and saw the damaged robot smack him away with its metal arm, sending him tumbling down the rocky cliff within the cave. " NO! " she shouted, and only the revelation that Scourge was still alive and conscious kept her from completely panicking. He grimaced as he tried to push himself up off the ground, clutching his side like he had a cracked rib, and impulsively called out to her, " Get outta here! Go home! I'll catch up with you later! "

Fiona gasped, and insisted, " No! I'm NOT abandoning you! Nobody gets left behind! " before skillfully managing to jump down various ledges sticking out of the rocky cliff and make her way down to Scourge unharmed. " Are you alright? " she asked him with concern, wishing she could help him up as he struggled and eventually succeeded in sitting up, his eyes squeezed tightly in pain. " Ugh, my chest… I think it cracked a rib! Damn it, it's gonna follow us down here! " he spat out angrily, sounding more exhausted than anything.

The two of them immediately looked up in shock when they heard the sound of thunder booming in the cave and saw the robot that once menaced them getting struck by lightning, which was quickly followed up with Knuckles jumping into it and punching it multiple times in rapid succession with fire surrounding his fists. Before they knew it, Sonic ran up to the edge of the cliff in a blue blur, quickly being followed by a worried-looking Tails, and said, " Catch! " before tossing a Chaos Emerald down to them. Scourge caught it and said in confused suspicion, " You… "

Sonic explained, " It's okay. You need it more than I do, " with a smile that revealed that he knew what had happened. Tails had run ahead of him and ended up witnessing everything, and the minute he saw Miles get seriously injured, he ran back to tell Sonic what happened. Sonic couldn't believe how much the three of them cared about each other. Not only did Fiona refuse to leave Scourge behind and put her life at risk just to stick by him, but she took it to herself to bandage up the one who betrayed her boyfriend just because he was traveling with her. But the most heartwarming part of it all, was that Scourge told Fiona to leave him behind, risking his own life just to increase her chances of survival. He was clearly in no condition to get home on his own, but he told her to leave without him in spite of that. Just seeing that the members of Scourge's gang would pull through for each other and protect each other in a moment of hardship, it warmed his heart to see. He always thought that Scourge was just using Fiona, but he was starting to believe that he was wrong.

Deciding to get himself home first and question Sonic later, Scourge nodded and held the Chaos Emerald in front of his chest, said, " Chaos Control! " visualized him, Fiona and Miles being in the living room of his hideout, and teleported him and his gang out of the cave in a flash of green light.

When the light surrounding them vanished, the three of them were back in their living room at last. While Fiona rushed to lie Miles down on the couch and get the First Aid Kit from the washroom, Scourge sighed in relief and painfully forced himself to the other couch before lying down on it moaning, and growled angrily, " Eggman will pay for this. "

When she came back, Fiona told him unhappily, " I'm really sorry, Scourge, but I've gotta tend to him first, he's bleeding. You can wait, right? " Scourge reluctantly agreed, " Yeah, just gimme an ice pack, I can wait. " Fiona said with relief, " Okay, good, " and carefully placed an ice pack on Scourge's bruised chest, feeling guilty about not being able to focus on him at the moment. He winced at the sudden cold object being placed on his sore chest, only to end up smiling in relief from the cold sensation easing his pain and closing his eyes as he relaxed.

Using the better equipped First Aid Kit in her house, Fiona immediately got to work treating and dressing Miles' injuries as quickly and skillfully as she could, taking the bandages off his head so that she could treat his injuries properly. As she put the special anti-bleeding powder on two cotton balls and held each of them against the sides of Miles' head, she unhappily made plans to flip the cushion of the couch where Miles' head was resting on, not being very confident that she'd be able to clean off the stains that were being made. After discarding the used cotton balls next to the couch and making plans to bring them all to a garbage can with a napkin later, she twisted the cap off the disinfectant bottle and poured a small amount of it onto a wad of cotton, dabbed the disinfectant-covered cotton on the wound on the side of Miles' head, and then disinfected the wound on the other side of his head with a different ball of cotton afterwards. " There, " she said quietly, and proceeded to re-bandage his head, once again keeping the bandages underneath the black tuft of hair he was so proud of instead of covering it.

" Now here comes the hard part, " she muttered, and turned him over on his side before proceeding to pull his red shirt off, which was difficult due to it being a turtleneck with long sleeves. After some struggling and lifting him up, she finally pulled it off him, and quickly got to work putting anti-bleeding powder on the various cuts scattered across his left side, disinfecting them, returning him to lying on his back and treating the cuts on his right side before finally wrapping bandages around his chest. " Finally… " she said under her breath, wondering if she could ever fully clean the stains out of his shirt.

But as she stared at Miles' unconscious body in concern, she began to feel like she still hadn't done enough for him to stabilize his condition. Worried, Fiona took off his right glove and the spiked wristband below it in an effort to check his pulse. After she placed his glove and wristband on the table and lifted his cold and clammy hand up from the couch, she held back a gasp at noticing something unusual about his wrist and hand; scars.

His right wrist and hand were completely covered in an unsettling amount of scars, the remains of years-old cuts in random different directions scattered across his young skin and contributing to it being rough to the touch in many different areas. Not only were there scars from old cuts on Miles' skin, but there were burns centered around the palm area, as if his hand had been pressed against a hot stove or something resembling it. Overcome with pity, she couldn't understand why Miles would have suffered so many scars at such a young age. It couldn't have just been because of all the fights he got into from working with the Suppression Squad, because Scourge was part of it for years and the only scars he got in his life were the ones on his chest.

Looking nervous, Fiona lifted his limp wrist holding her fingers close to the front part of it to check his pulse, staring at the clock on the wall for a measure of time as she counted for the next minute. His pulse was weak, but rapid, implying that his heart was beating unusually fast. Getting increasingly nervous, she gently placed her hand on his chest to check his breathing rate, trying not to press down too much and make it difficult for him to breathe in his unconscious state. His breathing was rapid and shallow, shallow enough that she could've barely detected his respiration otherwise.

" Hey, what's goin' on? What's takin' so long? " Scourge asked, with one eye open and his hands behind his head. He struggled to look over at Fiona without moving his chest too much, but was barely able to see her. " We've got a problem. He's lost enough blood to go into shock! Thankfully it's only _class 1_ circulatory shock, so I'll be able to help him. I think I should do some passive leg raising using a pillow to get more blood to his head. That'll increase the circulatory volume of blood for his heart by around 150 millimeters, or something like that, it's been a while since I read about the details. And he's cold, so he needs some warm blankets. " Fiona said unhappily.

Scourge looked confused at her medical terminology, only to smile and think, " _Man, am I lucky I got her! Didn't understand half of what she just said! I couldn't imagine doing all of that myself. Well, I'm sure if I was motivated enough, but I don't wanna do the research. But hey, she does!... She sure is somethin' special,_ " grateful that she was such a natural at First Aid.

" Oh, I just wish we could just go to the hospital! " she complained, wishing that she didn't always have the pressure of being the team nurse. Scourge said, " Yeah, well, we're wanted fugitives, so what'cha gonna do? You do a damn fine job, don't worry 'bout it. We'll all be fine, " and smiled at Fiona, giving her an encouraging thumbs-up. His nice gesture caused her to smile back a little, reassured by being reminded of the good she always saw in him, and she said, " Thanks, Scourge. I'll be right back, " and left the room, quickly returning with some pillows and blankets that were still warm from being fresh out of the dryer.

She placed the pillow and blankets on the floor temporarily, lifted up Miles' legs and carefully pushed the pillow under them to get his legs elevated. She covered him over with the warm blankets afterwards, gave Scourge a pillow of his own saying sadly, " Here, " and sighed with relief, only to return to looking worried and say, " After all of this, he's still unconscious… " There was a silence.

Fiona said nervously, " He might need a blood transfusion, but, I don't know! I guess we'll see, and then maybe I could somehow find a way to get what I need, but that sounds like a hard thing to steal. What's his blood type? " " A Positive, " Scourge answered immediately, only to look embarrassed and annoyed and avoid her resulting gaze. " … You _know_ that? " Fiona replied softly with a smile. Scourge stammered in annoyance with shifty eyes, " I-I, I've known him a really long time. It's not because I care about him or anything! I-It's just that I'm so familiar with him by now that I memorized things about him after a while. T-That's all… But I'm sure he won't need a blood transfusion. He'll be fine. And if he does, I know a guy. We've got lots of connections in the city, after all. "

After a brief silence where Fiona at last got to work treating and bandaging the cuts on Scourge's chest, left arm and right leg, he said, " I-I'm sure he'll be fine, Fiona. " beginning to look nervous. Either he was getting genuinely worried about losing Miles after he just got him back, or he was worried because his girlfriend was upset, or both at the same time. No matter which explanation it was, it made Fiona smile to hear it. Relaxing again, Scourge put his arms behind his head with his eyes closed again and said with a smile, " Just you wait, pretty soon he'll wake up and be back to being as condescending and stuck-up as ever, " and chuckled. Fiona rolled his eyes, and Scourge continued without noticing her reaction, " And then everything will go back to normal! Or, uh, the new normal anyway. "

At last, she returned the ice pack to his chest and said, " There you go. It's only supposed to be there for 20 minutes, though; any more and the… well… you'll just be cold, and it won't work as well, " stopping herself from saying more of the medical terminology she read about and confusing Scourge even more.

" Scourge? " Fiona asked nervously, her eyes looking over at Miles' hand again. Scourge asked her, " What? " with one eye opened and an annoyed but confused look. Fiona asked him with concern after some hesitation, worried about his reaction, " What happened to his hand? " Scourge's eyes immediately opened as he became alert again, and Fiona said after his anxious reaction, " And his wrist? "

There was a silence, and Scourge finally broke it by saying unhappily with downcast eyes that tried to avoid her gaze, " You saw his scars, huh? " Fiona nodded cautiously, wondering if he was the cause of them and felt guilty or if the explanation was even worse than she imagined.

After a depressing silence, Scourge sighed heavily, and put his sunglasses over his eyes to hide his feelings and looked away as he unhappily told her, " I wouldn't tell him you saw that if I were you… He's… before he met me… he had a _really rough_ past… He doesn't like to talk about it. He doesn't wanna look weak by getting all worked up. "

There was a silence, as Fiona looked at Miles holding back tears of sympathy for him, vividly remembering the scars once again. There were scars on the back of his wrist and hand as well. When she parted the fur of his arm, she gasped at seeing even worse scars, constriction marks, and the remains of burns on the back of it. She didn't even want to imagine what people did to him to cause all that. " What happened to him?! " Fiona asked him frantically, trying futilely to downplay the fear in her voice. She may have fallen for Scourge because of his bad boy image, but she always believed he had a soft side to him that she could bring out, which was why she felt so safe in getting involved with him, and the thought of him doing such awful things to a child so young frightened her.

Scourge, recognizing the anxiety in her voice, told her bitterly, " Bullies, that's what happened. Just because he was different from everybody else… They called him a mutant, and treated him like the scum of the earth! Those bastards… " After looking shocked and devastated, Fiona whispered softly, " ' Mutant? ' " It had never occurred to her that Miles would have been mistreated for having two tails. Did Tails go through that, too?

Scourge explained to her in a bitter and quiet voice, " Oh, believe me, Fiona, they called him FAR worse. The whole reason I showed up at that island in the first place was because I heard a rumor about the so-called, ' Coconut Island Freak, ' and I wanted to see him for myself. I heard he was an _amazing_ thief, gettin' away with stealing and breaking into houses by runnin' away at a ridiculous speed, and, I'll admit it, Fiona, I was gonna take advantage of him. I didn't think I'd ever become his friend, I just wanted to take advantage of his awesome speed to double the amount of loot I'd be getting. Well, when I finally showed up on the island, I found out that the mutant I was looking for was a kid. A five-year-old kid, and when I showed up, they were getting ready to _burn him at the stake._ That was how I met Miles… "

Fiona gasped, and looked over at Miles briefly before looking back at Scourge, horrified at the way he was treated. " I was lucky I managed to find him when I did. They tried to kill him, Fiona. For years and years. He was all cut up, bruised and starving… And he was only a kid! And you know what? When people catch 'em alone, he gets treated that way even _today!_ So this isn't just something that he had to deal with in the past. It's just as real today as it is now. Only difference is that now he's not spending everyday struggling to survive because he's not homeless anymore… I don't want you telling him I told you all this, but there's a reason he's so damn bitter! Five whole years of his life he was insulted, beaten and hunted down like vermin. They saw how fast he can run and they saw him take off flying in the air, and they called him a freak of nature and wanted him dead! It's because of people like THEM that he became the way he is in the first place! Those people disgust me… "

Fiona looked over at Miles again briefly, and stroked his head in compassion, before looking back at Scourge as he sat up and continued, " And I wish I could make 'em all pay. 'Cause _he_ sure as hell wants to! The most vengeful person I've ever met. Why the hell do you think he joined a criminal gang at his age in the first place? He wants to get back at the world! But it's not just one island of people who hate him for his second tail. It's everybody. If I tried to get back at everyone who ever treated him like dirt or wanted to, it'd take forever, and they wouldn't change anyways. Kinda weird coming from me, but, sometimes revenge is pretty pointless. But he doesn't care. I wish I had found him earlier. But by the time I found him, the damage had already been done. And it was too late… So no, Fiona, it wasn't me who gave him those scars. I admit we've had a rough friendship 'cause he's a condescending smartass and all, but I _know_ what they put him through, and I'm not like them. I'm a criminal and proud of it, but I'm not a monster! I-I admit I've given him a dope-slap from time to time, but that's as far as it goes. I have standards, you know… "

There was a silence after that as Fiona let it all sink in. The thought of a child so young going through such physical and emotional torment was heartbreaking. Considering what Miles had been through, it was starting to look like he had a far better reason to be untrusting of most people than she did. Her excuse for being untrusting and paranoid was incredibly weak in comparison, when for his entire life, Miles had been treated like a bitter enemy by everyone who wasn't his friend. It made perfect sense that the first words he said to her were, " I don't trust you. " He had no reason to trust strangers anymore.

Scourge closed his eyes and laid back down again, trying to get his mind off what he had just said, and Fiona said unhappily, " At least his life is better now… He's injured, but if everything goes right, he's going to be fine… So, I guess now we all just relax. " With that, she lifted up Miles' wrist and compassionately held his hand under the blankets to keep track of Miles' pulse while Scourge started taking a nap.

" _The only thing left for me to do is wait 'till Miles wakes up… if he wakes up,_ " she thought, concerned about her new teammate. While Scourge always had nothing but negative things to say about him, Fiona was willing to have faith in him and give him a second chance. It may have been because he was a child and that made her let her guard down, it may have been because he was trying to be polite, it may have been out of pity, or most likely, it was all of the above. Either way, even someone as cynical as her was able to forgive him and give him a chance, and the last thing she wanted was for him to die when he had just reconciled with Scourge.

After several more minutes of being unconscious, Miles finally began to regain awareness. Both sides of his head were in stinging aching pain, and there seemed to be a fabric wrapped around his head that was wet on the sides of his head, implying that he had received some head injuries and was bandaged for them. But as hard as he tried, he couldn't remember how he could've been injured. He was cold, and quickly became thankful for the warm blankets covering him. He was lying on a soft couch, with his legs elevated with a pillow underneath them, and he wondered why. His chest was bandaged as well, and his sides felt wet and were stinging in various areas, implying that he had been injured there as well, but once again, he couldn't remember it. He felt like he was on a rocking boat and the world was rising and falling and spinning around him, and he became worried as he wondered if it was the result of the head injuries. He felt like a soft hand was holding his wrist and hand beneath the blankets, and wondered whose hand it was.

Panicked and becoming determined to find out where he was, he forced himself to open his eyes despite wanting to go back to sleep, and moaned miserably. His eyes opened centimeter by centimeter, and he squinted and blinked from trying to adjust to the light, thankful that his vision quickly stopped being blurry and the whirling sensation subsided as he tried to learn about his surroundings.

Miles was in a living room that felt familiar, but he was certain that he had never been in it before. He was covered over with blankets, and when he looked to his right, he saw a female red fox Mobian with long brown hair looking worried about him. She wore a black tank top, black tight pants with a gray belt around it, black high heels, black fingerless gloves, and a yellow bow in her hair. She looked mildly familiar, but once again, he could've sworn up and down that he had never seen her before in his life. He moaned and complained, " My head… What happened? "

Lying on the couch across from him was a hedgehog Mobian with green fur and blue eyes, a black leather jacket with images of fire around the sleeves and back, and black and green shoes, with his chest, left arm, and leg bandaged up and wearing red sunglasses with gray lenses over his eyes. While the teenaged girl near him seemed vaguely familiar, the hedgehog across from him looked extremely familiar, and yet, at the same time, he thought he was a complete stranger. He was so confused and overwhelmed, torn between two conflicting feelings and not sure which one was right. Were they strangers, or did he really know them? They wouldn't be with him in the same house as him if they didn't know him beforehand, would they? And why was the teenaged hedgehog injured, and to a lesser extent than him? If they had gotten into a fight, then he wouldn't be okay with sharing the room with him as he recovered, would he?

Miles tried to remember what had happened to him to cause his injuries, or even get a clue of where he was, but nothing was coming back to him, and it frightened him to realize that. He didn't remember anything about his situation, his past, or who he was, and felt completely lost and confused. All he wanted to do was learn as much as he could to stop feeling overwhelmed and helpless.

" Miles?... He's waking up?! Oh, thank god, he's waking up! " a vaguely familiar soft female voice belonging to the red fox said in a tone full of concern and relief, and Miles felt his hand and wrist being let go of and gently placed on the couch below. A familiar voice that seemed to belong to a male teenager said to him, " About time you finally woke up. " Miles looked over at the hedgehog immediately, getting even more anxious just from hearing his menacing tone.

" We saved your hide back there. You wouldn't still be breathing if it weren't for us. You better appreciate this, " the green hedgehog in biker clothes said bitterly while staring at the ceiling with his arms behind his head. Miles couldn't believe it. He was clearly looking at a criminal, a teenaged punk, but instead of hurting him or worse, he saved his life? Had he judged him too harshly? He didn't want to become vulnerable to being manipulated by telling what were clearly criminals that he had amnesia, whether one of them cared about him or not, so he decided to try to play along and pretend that he still remembered everything. Not only would it protect him from being manipulated by being told false information, but it would prevent him from embarrassing himself by looking clueless all the time. He wished that he could simply tell them what he didn't know and receive the answer no problem, but it wasn't that simple.

" Scourge… " the girl scolded, and looked back at him as the hedgehog rolled his eyes at her to explain, " The two of you were badly injured. It's a good thing we had the necessary supplies in the First Aid Kit. All I had in my backpack was a roll of bandages and I only had enough for your head! You're suffering from circulatory shock, but it's only class 1, so you're gonna be fine. You just need to _relax_ and keep your legs elevated, that's all. "

Scourge said bitterly, " Only the first month of the little _traitor_ being in our gang and he's _already_ too hurt to be useful. I can't believe this. And what about me?! How am I supposed to show my dominance over the other criminals in the city when I'm stuck with a cracked rib for weeks on end? Or however the hell long it'll take for me to heal. Just great. And things were going so well for me, too. "

There was a silence. Miles soon went from being nervous to looking incredibly sad, and said in a voice full of shame, " I'm sorry… It's all my fault!... You didn't deserve to get hurt protecting me. " Scourge was struck speechless from his heartfelt apology, and it took several seconds for it to sink in and for him to think of a response that wouldn't make him look weak. " Miles, relax!... You're not in trouble! If it's anybody's fault, it's that _damn_ Doctor _Eggman_ for sending that giant robot over there in the first place! B-Besides, I was protecting myself and Fiona, not just _you._ I would've gotten into that fight even if you _hadn't_ gotten hurt. "

Miles was surprised and bewildered at hearing about a doctor Egg-man who had command over giant killer robots, and even more confused at how everyone was acting like it was no big deal. It was yet another thing he was expected to be familiar with, yet another thing that he couldn't get an explanation of. He supposed that he would have to wait and see to find out what on earth they were talking about.

All of the information he was taking in was confusing and shocking. The girl nursing him back to health was called Fiona, and the name barely sounded familiar at all, while hearing the name Scourge gave him mixed feelings, and he was torn between feeling comfortable with him and tensing up, and not just because of what the name meant. That implied that he had known Scourge a lot longer, and had been given good reason to fear him. He had been a traitor to this hedgehog named Scourge, but not only did it not get him killed, but he actually took him back after he asked to join him again. Why? Why did he return to him in the first place if he hated him so much? Was he really that low on options? And this so-called Scourge was apparently either the leader of nearly all the criminals in the city or had such dominance over them from fear and intimidation that he might as well have been. He wasn't sure whether to be amazed at accomplishing such a feat at such a young age or find him scary and untrustworthy. The only positive information he could gather was that the Fiona girl next to him was the most trustworthy and likable of the gang, possessing far more compassion than Scourge seemed to have, at least for _him_ anyways; he had no idea how Fiona treated everyone else. Scourge would be difficult to get used to, but Fiona didn't seem so bad.

" Oh, um… okay… " he said quietly with a sad look on his face. Fiona reassured him, " Don't worry, kiddo, you'll be alright. I'll make sure of it! " which caused him to smile. Scourge looked confused and said suspiciously, " Hey, I thought you _hated_ being called that! The last time I called you kiddo, you were furious with me! And I wasn't even doing it to insult you that time! " This caused Miles to look nervous immediately at realizing he had caused suspicion, and stammer, " W-Well, uh, she's an exception, " while avoiding his scrutinizing glare. " Okay… " Scourge said suspiciously, wondering if there was something he wasn't telling him about.

Scourge and Fiona couldn't believe how differently he was acting. He had gone from bitterly forcing himself to be polite to being a combination of polite, nervous and shy around them. It was an almost unnerving change, and the two of them wondered if the apparent change in behavior was from the sheer impact of them saving his life or from brain damage. They decided to draw their own conclusions, Fiona believing the former and Scourge the latter, and didn't dare point it out in front of Miles for fear that he would realize he was acting differently and stop. While they were slightly uncomfortable with the change in behavior, neither of them disagreed on the fact that it was a positive one.

" Want your glove and bracelet back on? " Fiona asked. Perplexed, Miles asked, " Huh? " and she clarified, " I had to take the glove and bracelet off one of your hands to check your pulse. Here, I'll give 'em back to you, " and as he sat up and the blankets fell off him, he leaned against the couch from a head rush, and as he reached out for the glove and bracelet with his hands, he noticed an identical match to his glove and bracelet on his other hand and wrist, but that wasn't nearly as worrying as what he noticed a second later. There were a disturbing amount of scars and old burn marks on his ungloved hand, which only heightened his anxiety as he worried just what kind of fights he had gotten himself into in the past.

His gloves were white and small. The bracelets were black wristbands with four small metal spikes jutting out of each side of it, implying that it was something he'd have to be careful with wearing and take off before sleeping to avoid injuring himself. He noticed a small black flip switch on each of the bracelets, and made plans to use it later on to discover what it did.

The glove looked more familiar than the bracelet, but not by much, and as he put the two of them on, starting with the spiked bracelet, he looked nervous and confused, staring at his scars with a look of dread the entire time and hoping it wouldn't attract suspicion. It was only after he had finished putting on his glove and bracelet that he took a good look at the rest of his body, and was surprised and confused when he saw that in addition to having bandages wrapped around his torso, he was wearing red boots that were gray at the tip. The boots he was fine with, but the spiked bracelets made him worry that he might hurt himself by accident with them. Being torn between discomfort, wariness, and thinking it was cool, he thought, " _I'm in a gang, alright,_ " assuming that Scourge had given them to him as an initiation gift. It was either that, or he owned them even before that. It made sense; he must have had a rough past if he worked with Scourge even before he joined him again.

Misinterpreting his surprise over seeing what he was wearing, Fiona explained, " I had to take your shirt off and put it in the washer, your cuts stained it quite a bit. Don't worry, you'll have it back in no time! " Still looking confused and nervous, Miles replied, " Um, okay. Thank you, " wondering what the shirts he tended to wear looked like. He had a feeling that turtlenecks were what he'd usually wear, but why? Unless he felt like they were safer because they protected his neck… He resisted an incoming shudder at the thought, and laid back down on the couch at last, pulling the blankets over him with his eyes closed as he moaned miserably.

There were so many different things around him and so much information that felt like they should spark memories, but didn't, and when he tried to retrieve those memories, his attempts only worsened his headache, causing the sides of his head to go from merely stinging to aching unbearably as he held them and silently begged the pain to stop. It was as if his brain was rebelling against him trying to find out about his past, and punishing him with excruciating pain to get him to stop. It was as if he didn't want to remember, and the head trauma only gave him a convenient excuse to forget. Fiona didn't fail to notice this, and held back a sigh of unhappiness, wishing that there was something she could do to ease his pain.

Tails laid on the couch with the TV on in front of him, worried about Scourge and Miles. No matter how hard he tried to distract himself, he couldn't get out of his head the image of Miles lying on the rocky ground with his head bleeding and Fiona panicking about it as she helped him. Unable to hide his worries anymore, Tails said to Sonic and Knuckles, " Do you think they're going to be okay? " The two of them looked at him in shock and confusion. " I mean, they're wanted fugitives, I don't know if they can get away with going to a hospital without being recognized and the police being called on them. Do you think they can really survive those injuries without a doctor? "

After a brief silence where Sonic and Tails looked concerned, Knuckles told him while sitting on a chair with his arms behind his head, " Oh, grow up, Tails. They deserve whatever's coming to them. They're criminals. Remember? Criminals! What part of that do you not understand? " Sonic gave him a disapproving look and sighed while shaking his head in exasperation, knowing that he couldn't get Knuckles to stop being the way he was.

Sonic went into deep thought about Scourge and his situation. He couldn't believe that it took that long for him to see him again after he broke out of prison, and even then, it wasn't because he had tried to seek him out. Did Scourge not care about proving he could beat him in a fight anymore? Was he too busy with his own life? What was he busy with? Why was he traveling with Miles as part of his gang? He didn't send the No Zone police after Scourge because he wasn't showing signs of any big plans that would justify getting him deprived of freedom again; he already felt guilty about doing it the last time. For someone who always espoused the value of freedom, being responsible for someone's freedom being cruelly restricted for life made him feel like a horrible hypocrite. He wondered what Scourge was up to, and how he got back to full power so easily. He would've blamed Dr. Finitevus, but the news reported his death a day before Scourge had broken out of the No Zone, so he couldn't have restored him to full power himself.

Tails said sadly, " Maybe some inventing will keep my mind off things, " and left the living room to walk to his workshop, too upset to run there and save himself the time. After staring at the tools and materials in his workshop, he said, " I've got to do _something,_ " and decided to build what he would later name the Medi-Checker, a long thin metallic device that would be able to scan a person's body and show an image of it that highlighted the injuries while explaining their severity in text.

After that, he wandered the city holding the Medi-Checker and looking for Fiona, wanting to improve Scourge and Miles' chances of survival instead of feeling responsible for their deaths from complacency.

Fortunately for him, as he had no idea where he was going, he encountered Fiona while she was walking through the city on his way to question Sonic about why he was in the cave. " Oh, hey, Tails, how've you been? " she said, with a smile that failed to hide her concern about Scourge and Miles and her guilt about the way she treated him in the past. " I'm okay. I guess. But I saw what happened to Miles. I can't get that image out of my head of him lying on the ground, bleeding from his head, and, I, is he okay? He doesn't have any brain damage, does he? " Tails said sadly, and Fiona's heart ached in sympathy from it. He really was a sweet kid.

" I don't think so. He's tired, and dizzy, and doesn't want to get off the couch yet, but it might be temporary, I don't know yet! I just wish I had a way of finding out what exactly his injuries are! Can't exactly bring him to the hospital with our reputations. I think I might be able to heal him with that Chaos Emerald! I mean, it's a magical jewel, I don't see why it _wouldn't_ be able to do that. But I can't heal him if I don't know what's wrong! How do I give it the right instructions if I don't know what exactly is supposed to be healed? I don't know, Tails, I… Wait, what's that in your hand? " she responded, letting all of her worrying out until she spotted an invention in Tails' hand.

Tails said sadly, " It's a gift, from me to you. I know you guys can't go to the hospital without getting caught, so I made something that would let you find out exactly what your injuries are. It's very user-friendly, you just push this one button and it starts the process, and it runs on Chaos Drives, so it's got a LOT of energy and on the off chance it somehow runs out, you can just fight Eggman's robots to get more! Just don't tell anyone that I gave it to you. If anyone asks, you took it from Eggman. "

Fiona was stunned at his compassion, and it caused her to feel kind of guilty that she had been planning to just steal it. " Thanks, kiddo, " she said with a small smile, holding the device carefully in her hands. Tails smiled nervously and said, " Y-You're welcome. " On the one hand, he was unhappy about being treated like just a kid by her, but he appreciated her kindness anyways, no matter where it came from. With that, he ran back home in a yellow blur spinning his tails like a propeller, leaving before Fiona could ask him any more questions.

Fiona went home holding a very long metallic object in her hand with a button on it, and before Scourge could ask her what she was holding, she answered, " Cool loot, huh? It's called the Medi-Checker. It'll tell me exactly what your injuries are with the press of a button! " With that, she held the Medi-Checker's top over Miles' head while he was resting on the couch, unaware of what was happening around him. The Medi-Checker seemed to scan him with a harmless green laser, and suddenly, as if the entire metallic surface of the Medi-Checker was one big computer screen, Fiona saw green words appear on it to explain to her what his injuries were, with the top of it above Miles' head changing color to show her a basic image illustrating what his injuries were, with red areas being red to represent damage. All she could gather was that there was damage to the sides of his head, and there appeared to be internal damage in the center of his brain, but nothing that was causing the words on the Medi-Checker to warn her too much. All it did was warn her of potential memory loss.

She sighed in slight disappointment, thought, " _Well, I guess beggars can't be choosers. It may be vague, but it's the best I've got!_ " and went over to the backpack she placed on the living room table to retrieve the Chaos Emerald from it that she had put away.

" What are you doing? " Scourge asked in confusion, as she brought the Chaos Emerald over to Miles as he slept on the couch. " I've got an idea, " Fiona said with a smile, turning Miles over on his side. With her right hand, she held the Chaos Emerald just over the wound on the left side of his head, and with her left hand, she held the Medi-Checker over it to give herself an image to focus on, an idea of what exactly she'll need to think about. Hoping she was doing it right, she closed her eyes and visualized the wound being sealed up as if it was never there and the bruise and bump being healed, deciding not to take the risk of trying to heal internal damage when she didn't have enough information.

Scourge's eyes widened and he looked stunned at seeing the Chaos Emerald appear to become a lighter shade of its color and start glowing brightly with a quiet chiming sound coming from it. A couple seconds later, the emerald stopped glowing, and when Fiona carefully took off the bandage from Miles' head, there was no sign of any injury. Scourge was dumbstruck, not being sure what to say, as Fiona proceeded to repeat the exact same process for the other side of Miles' head, and heal its external damage completely. When the emerald stopped glowing, she smiled in relief, and said, " I couldn't heal the internal damage because I don't know exactly what was damaged or what it looks like, so he'll probably still have a headache for a while, but it's better than it used to be. Now for his sides… "

She then proceeded to repeat the process for his left side, healing it with the glowing emerald in her hand. Scourge was amazed at seeing the blood in his fur get magically cleaned up as the cuts and bruises on his back were healed. Then she proceeded to repeat the process for his right side after turning him over on his back. " Done! Now for you, babe! If you think I'm _capable_ of it, " Fiona said confidently, with a smile and a wink at her final sentence. After a brief silence, Scourge grinned and said, " Go ahead! Wow! Man, you've been the gang nurse since you first joined, but I never would've imagined you'd get this far! I'm proud to call you the team healer! Way to go! "

Expecting that response, Fiona giggled in satisfaction, and held the Medi-Checker and Chaos Emerald over his ribs, healing the damage a lot better than she did with Miles. " Damaged bone is a lot easier for me to heal. Try getting up! " she said cheerfully, and Scourge got up from the couch, cautiously and slowly at first and then quickly as he realized that he wasn't feeling any pain. Scourge gladly left the couch, and stood in front of her. " So, what do you think? " Fiona asked confidently, already knowing the answer with her hands on her hips as she placed the two tools on the couch. Scourge ran around the table in a green blur to celebrate and stopped to give her a thumbs-up, saying, " Great job! I could get used to this! " He looked away and continued with a smirk, " Now we can get back to business! " looking forward to fighting and stealing again.

The commotion was interrupted when Miles moaned, and slowly opened his eyes. He looked confused, and commented, " What's going on? My headache's not as bad anymore, and, you removed the bandage? Am I better already? " He carefully touched and rubbed the sides of his head with shaking hands, preparing for pain, and was surprised at not feeling a wet sensation or the pain of touching something sore. Fiona said cheerfully while holding up the Chaos Emerald, " I've got great news! I can heal you now! I snatched some great loot called a Medi-Checker and it let me see exactly what your injuries were. After that, it was just a matter of imagining the injuries being healed while holding the emerald just above them, and the emerald did the rest! "

Her smile faded, and she said unhappily, " Unfortunately, it looks like you have some internal damage, in your head. N-Nothing serious, nothing like internal bleeding or a concussion where you shouldn't be sleeping with it, but the Medi-Checker _did_ warn me of some potential memory loss. And I didn't wanna try to heal it when I'm not an expert on neurobiology and don't know exactly what parts of the brain do what, not yet anyway. I didn't want to make any, um, negative changes because I don't know what I'm doing. So, I'm sorry I couldn't completely heal you. But I was just trying to be careful. I'll steal some books on the brain and do my own research, and _maybe_ I'll be able to fix things later. But I did my best. I hope you appreciate that. "

After a silence where Miles unhappily looked around the room, worried about the confirmation that his memory loss was indeed at least partially the result of minor brain damage, he smiled politely and said kindly, " I do, Fiona. Thank you. You're a good healer. Impressive work for your first try! " Fiona giggled, and Scourge looked at Miles with a raised eyebrow and a suspicious expression, which made him worried. Was he acting differently than he usually did? He didn't want to mistreat Fiona just to avoid them figuring out he had amnesia, when she seemed like a perfectly fine girl; a cheerful, nice and compassionate teammate that was surprisingly intelligent and had a good heart, joining in on the law-breaking because it was a fun activity to do with the guy she loved. She gave off a bit of a manipulative trickster vibe, someone who wouldn't stop at much to get what she wanted, but she was definitely easier to deal with than Scourge. Still, Miles wondered how he should react to Scourge's confused look at him, and what it meant about himself. Was he usually not a polite person? Was he looking weak and making himself seem like an easy target by being polite? Should he keep being polite to his teammates, but act impolite to everyone else?

Fiona asked him, " Are you still dizzy? Do you still have a headache? " looking concerned. Miles said in confusion, " Yes, but, not as much as before… " Fiona smiled sweetly at him and said, " Just rest and relax for a while, and when you're ready to go on missions with us again, everything will go back to normal. I'll stay here to supervi- I-I mean, look after you. I guess Scourge will just have to exert his dominance over the other criminals alone for a while. " Scourge grinned and said, " I prefer to see this as an opportunity! What better way to remind them that I'm a threat even when alone? " and ran out of the house in a green blur before saying another word. Fiona giggled and said, " Bye, sweetie! "

She turned to Miles and said with a smile, " You can watch whatever you want on TV. I'll put the volume on low so your headache doesn't get even worse, " and handed Miles the remote control to his confusion. He proceeded to blindly channel-scroll until he finally managed to find something educational to watch, relieved that Fiona wasn't asking questions. Instead, she seemed to be more interested in reading a medical book on the armchair. She didn't strike him as the type of person who would be interested in that kind of research, but he supposed that since she was the one in charge of giving the other gang members medical attention, it made sense that she'd want to improve her skills.

The next few days were rather uneventful. Fiona, as usual, cooked the meals and did the chores, this time without Miles helping her because he needed to relax and recover, and she showed him compassion as she supervised him, bringing him books from his room to read to entertain himself. Scourge showed his dominance to " his " section of the city, taking advantage of his super speed and homing-attack to injure and steal from any criminals that hadn't pledged their allegiance to him, and intimidating the ones that had, visiting their homes to get " offerings " in the form of essentials and luxuries alike. He returned home for lunch and dinner, and skipped out on running around the streets in the late evening to get some early rest, figuring that he had done enough to show he was a threat on his own for the day.

Scourge tried to hide his concern for Miles' well-being by complaining about Miles' complaining, at one point intimidating him by saying he wouldn't get away with faking it, and clearly being impatient for him to recover, claiming that it was only so he could be useful to the gang again. Fiona was actually honest about her concern, but tried to remain cheerful and reassure Miles, all the while being worried about how he was acting so differently, spending most of his time quiet and in deep thought with an unhappy look on his face. Granted, that wasn't very different from how he usually acted, but he usually looked bitter rather than sad. Rather than figuring out that he was unhappy because of his amnesia as well as his pain, she assumed it was only because of his headaches and dizzy spells and hoped he would return to normal later.

A couple days later, Miles finally stopped suffering from dizzy spells and headaches, and was cautiously optimistic about it, not being sure whether or not they would come back. Serving him and Scourge pancakes for breakfast, Fiona asked him, " Are you feeling better yet? " with a hopeful smile. Miles answered, " I think so. I'm not dizzy anymore, and my headache has subsided… " looking nervous at Scourge's eager expression. He wasn't sure if he was ready to accompany Scourge in the city as his accomplice in crime, mainly because he had no idea what he did to keep that position.

Fiona exclaimed happily, " That's great! I knew you'd get better sooner or later! Here you go! " giving him his shirt back with a smile. It was a long-sleeved turtleneck that was red for the most part, black at the neck and bottom part of it, and had a white square design at the center with black edges and the image of four black screws on its corners. Technically, it was a sweater, but it functioned as a shirt because he wasn't wearing an actual shirt beneath it. He thought the design of it was cool, and smiled at how comfortable it was to wear, being fuzzy and somewhat loose on him. " Come on, Miles! Time to show this city that you're a threat again! " Scourge said with a smirk, and the three of them left the house, with Miles looking nervous as he reluctantly followed his gang, having no idea what he was in for or what he was expected to do.


	5. Chapter 5

Soon after Miles, Scourge and Fiona left the house for their first " run " through the city together in days, a robot jumped out at them from the alley. Miles yelped and instinctively made a throwing motion at it with his hand, and to his surprise and bewilderment, this caused lightning to shoot from his palm and strike the robot with the loud sound of booming thunder. Panicked, Miles ran away from it, and instinctively jumped into the air, bent forwards, and spun his tails in a circle above his head, flying away from the wreckage of the robot before he even realized what he was doing. When he finally did, he gasped, looking down at the ground below, and fell out of the sky screaming from no longer being focused on what he was doing, only to land in something soft. Still shaken and rattled, he looked to the left of him and realized that Scourge had caught him in his arms, and quickly put him down carefully with a worried but serious look on his face, thinking it would become awkward if he held him for longer than necessary. Miles was stunned that Scourge would do something like that for him, but with a dozen different things on his mind, he was unable to think any further on the subject, instead looking right at the robot that tried to attack him and hoping he had defeated it. Was that one of Eggman's robots?

The robot short-circuited at last, after several seconds of smoking and sparking, and Miles sighed in relief. There was a silence, until Scourge snapped him out of it with a harsh, " Hey! " Miles jumped and exclaimed, " What, what?! " and Scourge rolled his eyes before questioning, " Why'd you react like that?! You've shot lightning and used your tails to fly a whole bunch of times before this! Since when are you scared of your own powers? " Getting panicked at blowing his cover, Miles stammered, " I-I'm not! That robot just snuck up on me, that's all! " Fiona, who was standing beside him looking worried, pointed out, " But then why did you fall out of the sky? You're usually great at flying! You didn't look tired or anything. "

There was a silence as Miles looked everywhere except at Fiona and Scourge, his eyes darting around nervously as he tried to think of a convincing lie, ashamed of what he was hiding. " I-I, I, I… " he stammered hopelessly, still shaken and losing hope that he could hide it. Realizing that no amount of lying could get him out of this, his eyes filled with tears, and Miles broke down crying in front of them, falling onto his knees and covering his eyes with his hands, overwhelmed with the anxiety over his amnesia that he had bottled up for so long.

With Fiona and Scourge looking shocked and worried, he exclaimed, " I was surprised, okay?! I admit it! I don't know why that happened! I don't remember being able to _do_ that! I didn't know I could do _any_ of that! I don't remember… I didn't know I had these powers! And now I don't remember ANY of them! Please, PLEASE don't kick me out of the gang! There has to be some way I can relearn them! I can't go back to my old life! Please… "

It didn't take long for Scourge and Fiona to realize that his memory loss was the result of his head injuries, and while they were still unaware that he had outright amnesia, they felt sorry for him regardless. A little reluctant because it would make him look like he had gone soft, he pulled Miles close to him for a quick hug, holding him tightly against his chest to reassure him.

As Miles cried into his shoulder and wondered why he wasn't more surprised by the hug, Scourge reassured him, " Miles, relax. It's no big deal. We'll take turns coaching you every single day until you relearn all of your powers again. I've known you since you were five, I know everything you're capable of. And so does Fiona! We're not putting your potential to waste by kicking you out when there's an obvious solution to the problem. How 'bout it, Fi? Think you can help coach him? " Fiona smiled a little nervously, and shrugged, saying, " I guess I can take a half an hour out of my medical attention research to teach him. Come on, it'll be fun! "

Miles wiped his tears, embarrassed, and said, " A-Alright, " trying to hide how wary he was of discovering just how powerful he was. Scourge reassured Miles, " It won't take that long. You'll rediscover a lot of powers on your own by following your instincts when you're in danger. The more you help us in fights, the more abilities you'll relearn! "

They brought him to the Mystic Ruins at 12:00 for every training session to give him a wide open field for his training, staying on the opposite side of the mountain from Sonic and Tails' house to keep them from seeing what they were doing and jumping to conclusions.

Clearly eager to reteach him his skills, Scourge told him, " Okay, let's start with your most awesome attack! All you do to shoot lightning is make a throwing motion and imagine lightning coming from the palms of your hands. But you can't always get it that quick, it's usually when a lightning storm's happened recently and you've got a lot of spare electricity in the sky to draw from. When you run out of energy, you can charge up more in your palms by having your hands in front of you bent back like this, " and showed him how to do it while explaining, " and focus on the image of yellow energy balls appearing in your hands, starting out small and growing, and when it starts becoming too big, just make a throwing motion and focus on lightning shooting out at your target! You can do it, Miles! You've done it a billion times! " Miles was nervous at first, worrying that he'd accidentally electrocute himself or Scourge, but as he followed Scourge's directions, he discovered that there was nothing to worry about. He was a natural.

He caused spheres of electricity to appear in his hands, which were bent backwards with the fingers curled slightly forwards and turned to the side with his arms up in front of him, and as soon as the energy balls began to look like they were getting too big for his hands, he threw them out of his hands and they morphed into lightning that moved exactly where he wanted it to. Lightning was the easiest ability for him to relearn, feeling completely natural to him, and being the ability he was the most likely to use by default when threatened. The energy balls started out as tiny sparks of electricity in the middle of his palms, and quickly those sparks fused into spheres that increased in size the more Miles focused on charging his energy into them, until they finally reached the size of a soccer ball and were ready to be thrown. As soon as he created the first two energy balls and threw them as lightning, the next pairs of energy balls would generate in his hands much faster than the previous ones, as if the lightning generated before had simply returned to his hands after vanishing into their targets and saved him the trouble of generating more electricity.

After he used his lightning powers with Scourge's guidance for the first time, Miles was confused and slightly worried at how using his powers seemed to make him feel like he was exerting his energy on them, despite not doing much in the way of physical exertion. He wondered how it was possible that he could felt tired and exhausted from using his powers, when if doing those same motions didn't create the desired effect, he wouldn't have used up nearly as much stamina. The only explanation he could come up with was that after reading for an extended period of time, someone could feel tired and exhausted from the mental exertion alone, explaining how his powers could make him tired, and he wondered if the mental exertion of using his powers being added to the physical exertion of his gestures were responsible for them draining more of his stamina than expected. He hoped that he wouldn't become too exhausted from using his powers, and that he would get an increased amount of tolerance to them the more he did them.

Right after that, Miles was taught how to fly, being told to jump into the air, maneuver himself in the air so that he bent forwards before reaching the height of his jump, and start spinning his tails like a propeller when they appeared to be above his head. He was able to keep himself in the air by doing that, and was amazed, wondering if his chaos powers were what allowed him to defy gravity, move his tails that fast, and keep his tails from getting tangled up and twisted around each other. As long as he focused on keeping his tails spinning around above his head in a circle, he wouldn't fall, but he could get tired after a while and start descending, even as his tails continued to spin in a circle that moved to below and behind his neck. Even when he became too tired to keep flying, he was still able to glide to where he needed to go as he descended.

After that, Scourge taught him how to move along the ground at 520 miles per hour by spinning his tails vertically behind him as he ran. The spinning of his tails generated a gale force wind that propelled him forwards at high speed, and he wondered if the source of his wind powers, and weather powers in general, was actually his tails, and he simply needed his arms to control them. He exclaimed, " I did it!... Scourge? " He looked around in confusion, and became nervous at realizing that Scourge had run home without him, apparently expecting him to race him home without telling him ahead of time. " Uh-oh… " he said nervously.

While he was flying over Central City on his way back home, worried and hoping that he wouldn't be trouble with Scourge for not keeping up with him, he heard a familiar high-pitched male voice shout, " Miles! " Looking surprised and shocked that someone other than Scourge and Fiona knew his name and felt familiar, Miles looked down, and gasped at seeing a two-tailed fox with yellow and white fur and blue eyes who heavily resembled him looking up at him with a worried expression. " Do I have a twin brother? " Miles said in confusion under his breath, and wished that he had heard Scourge or Fiona mention Tails at some point before that. He was wary, but his curiosity soon got the better of him and he landed on the street in front of him to listen to what he had to say.

Tails said with a voice full of relief, " Miles! You're okay! You don't look hurt anymore! Oh, thank goodness! Looks like my Medi-Checker worked! " But despite the relief in his tone, he looked nervous, with his smile slightly forced, and there was fear in his eyes. Was he nervous because he was afraid of him, or because he had something to hide? Miles was taken out of his suspicion-filled train of thought the instant he heard the word, " Medi-Checker. " Looking shocked, he blurted out to him, " That belonged to you?! " He wondered how such a young child could possibly own such a futuristic invention. Was it a gift from his father?

Tails looked confused, and said, " Well, yeah. I gave it to Fiona as a gift… I guess she was worried that Scourge would brag to Eggman that she ' stole ' it from him and get him all worked up for nothing if she gave him all the details. And if she told him that it came from me, he'd brag about the theft to Sonic, so... " Miles looked away, trying to hide his confused and worried expression. The name Sonic seemed familiar, too. Why? In fact, it seemed extremely familiar, even more familiar than the name Scourge. Was this Sonic a criminal that Scourge actually feared too much to try to deal with and kept away from because of that? If so, it would be wise not to mention him to Scourge, because just mentioning his most feared enemy might cause him to be accused of betraying him for him. But for some odd reason, hearing the word Sonic didn't just make him feel intimidated. It also filled him with an intense sadness, as if he was longing for something long past, and a part of him was happy and comforted at hearing Sonic's name, feeling like he was someone he could trust. He almost felt compelled to ask to go see Sonic in the hopes of getting answers about his past, but resisted the temptation. If Scourge was against Sonic, there was no way Sonic would try to help him with his problem, let alone keep it a secret for him.

Noticing what he interpreted as an awkward silence, Tails scratched the back of his neck nervously and said, " I-I guess what I'm trying to say is, how hurt were you by that robot, Miles? D-Did it cause any permanent damage? " Miles looked suspicious. A part of him wanted to believe that Tails was kind enough to be worried about him despite being on a side opposing him, but he didn't want to make a mistake in trusting him. So he crossed his arms and looked bitter to hide the lonely sadness and fear, and said coldly, " Why would you care? You don't even like me. I'm working for Scourge again, and your _Sonic_ isn't on the best of terms with him. So why did you give Fiona that Medi-Checker, when you must have known she would use it to heal me and Scourge? I-I mean, Scourge and I. "

Tails looked sad at what he said to him, and even more worried than before upon realizing from Miles not speaking with perfect grammar for once that something about him had changed. Hoping he could make him understand, he explained patiently, " Because just because you're supposed to be my enemy doesn't mean I want terrible things like that to happen to you. We never got along, sure, but I don't want you to get brain damage! I don't want you to die! I don't want that to happen to _anyone!..._ That's just how I am. And it's a lot more common than you think. People can still care about your well-being even if they don't like you or trust you. But I can understand why, after all the time you spent with Scourge, you'd have a hard time believing that. " He looked at him in sympathy, not failing to notice how Miles' bitter expression quickly became replaced with an expression of sadness and confusion.

He wanted to believe that Tails was right, but something in him was holding him back. He was afraid, terrified that if he let down his guard around someone, he'd immediately pay for it, being beaten up, tricked, shot at and called a freak the instant he tried to trust anyone, even if he did nothing wrong to them and even if he tried to help them…

It took a few seconds for Miles to look shocked and even more worried as it dawned on him what that fear of people could've meant. Why did he get such a strong feeling that he'd be specifically called a freak, as opposed to being called ' brat ' or ' pixel-brain ' like Scourge always called him when he was angry with him? Did he have bad experiences with being mistreated by everyone he met in the past purely for being different from them? The only " freakish " thing about him that he could think of was his second tail, which he must have always had because he wasn't surprised at seeing it. That, and his powers, but judging from what Scourge and Fiona said to him and how impressed they seemed to be, it seemed like he had only figured out he possessed abilities that could hurt people recently, so it didn't make sense that he'd be hated for harmless powers. He was so confused, and realizing that he might have been severely bullied in the past and developed cynicism and mistrust of people was more than enough to discourage him from wanting to find out about his past even more.

" Miles?... Anti-Tails? " Tails said, snapping him out of his train of thought. " Huh?! I-I mean… What is it? " he replied, confused and awkwardly trying to look dignified after such an uncharacteristic response. The name Anti-Tails stressed him out for what felt like multiple different reasons, with the most prominent one being that half of it sounded like a very insulting nickname directed at him by bullies. But the first half of that name soon caught his attention, and he was shocked and bewildered by it. So this little boy wasn't his twin brother. If anything, he sounded like a counterpart of his, from another dimension. It sounded outlandish and unrealistic, but after everything he had heard and seen so far – the so-called Chaos Emerald that healed him, hearing about a doctor Eggman who built a giant killer robot that almost killed him, seeing Scourge run at an extremely fast speed casually and learning that he could shoot lightning out of his hands – having an interdimensional counterpart wasn't that far-fetched. It didn't stop the, ' Anti, ' from sounding derogatory and hurtful, like he was the version of Tails that shouldn't have ever existed and didn't deserve to have been born, a feeling that felt very familiar. But from the concerned look on the child's face, it was clear to him that he wasn't trying to insult him.

" S-Sorry, uh, you didn't answer my question. Miles, um… Something's different about you. I can tell. You're not always speaking like you used to, and you don't look like you hate me as much. What's worrying you? I-I know it's none of my business, but I just wanna help! I still remember seeing the condition you were in when that giant robot slammed you into a rocky wall, and you were bleeding from both sides of your head and, the back of your shirt was stained, and, I-I-I just wanna know that you recovered from that, that's all. I-I keep feeling like I could've done something to prevent it, like maybe if I had tried harder to rush my friends to get them to where you were faster, then we could've had that robot destroyed in time and prevented all of that! I'm sorry if you got hurt because of me. I-I didn't know… "

Once again, Miles looked sad and confused at what he said to him. For some reason, he felt like he could deeply relate to that, feeling like it was his fault that someone got seriously hurt and he could've done something to prevent it. What else about his past didn't he know? He couldn't help but be curious, but at the same time, he was terrified of it. All he learned about it upset him, and despite his enthusiasm for gaining new knowledge, when it came to learning about his depressing past, he was starting to think that ignorance was bliss. What would he really gain from knowing his past? His life had changed since he joined Scourge again. He didn't need his old memories. He seemed to be doing a fine job of fooling people into thinking he still remembered them, he was surviving just fine even with amnesia, and even if he did try to learn about his past, there would only be so many people would be able to tell him, or willing to tell him, and he'd be opening himself up to manipulation and lies if he was open about his amnesia to the wrong people.

He had the urge more than ever to go up to someone like Tails or the so-called Sonic and ask him what he knew about him and reveal how little he remembered, but he couldn't let anyone find out the truth. Fiona would be worried about him, and Scourge, as well as plenty of other people, would try to take advantage of him, lie to him about his past and manipulate him to their own ends and make him how they wanted him to be. He'd rather go through life never remembering his past at all, or in the best case scenario, figure it out on his own, even if he could never personally recollect it.

Should he try to find out what little he can about his past, or should he live in blissful ignorance, knowing that it didn't matter when the circumstances of his life had changed since then? He didn't know what to do. All he knew for sure was that he didn't like knowing that Tails was feeling that upset, despite the fact that he was supposed to hate him, probably for being his counterpart and having a much happier life. He felt the urge to try to make him feel better, but again, he was afraid. He didn't want to put himself in danger by looking weak and vulnerable in front of him by comforting him, instead of maintaining a dignified intimidating composure. Attempting to do both at the same time, he looked bitter with his arms crossed and avoided looking at him as he said,

" Don't be absurd, it isn't your fault. I'm fine… Tails. I'll be fine. My back's completely healed, my head injuries are gone, the worst I have to deal with now are headaches. I can assure you that I have _fully recovered_ from my injuries, and will be a formidable opponent to anyone who tries to threaten me. So don't think I'm not at full power anymore! I still possess _all_ of the same abilities as the last time we spoke. And if you threaten me, I _will_ hurt you. "

He walked away from him, only to stop when Tails commented, " I won't hurt you if you don't hurt me first. O-Okay?... I don't really like hurting people anyways… " looking incredibly confused and worried. Miles was acting as if _he_ was the one who usually threatened him instead of the other way around, as if his goal to defeat him in a duel and kill him had disappeared and he now only saw a reason to hurt him in self-defence. Whatever damage those head injuries did to him, had definitely changed him. Miles turned to face him, with his expression showing a mixture of confusion, anxiety and forced annoyance with him, and he questioned, " So you really think I'm acting differently? How? "

There was a silence, and Tails looked anxious and scared, wondering if he had made a mistake. Trying to save himself from another fight, he reassured him, " D-Don't get me wrong. You're not acting _wrong!_ You changed for the better! I prefer you this way, and I'm sure Scourge and Fiona do, too. Fiona was really worried about you, you know. It must have been for a reason. " With that, he ran away from him in a yellow blur, spinning his tails vertically behind him, and Miles stared at him as he left with a mixture of anxiety, sadness and confusion, hoping that Tails was right about what he said. He flew up into the sky and made his way back home, wondering if Tails was able to shoot lightning, too. After all, he was able to run at an incredibly high speed in the same manner that he did. What else was he capable of? Perhaps it was for the best that he decided not to attack him to ward off suspicion when he hadn't relearned all of his attacks yet.

When he finally returned home, he opened the door and gasped in fear at seeing Scourge glaring at him with his arms crossed, having waited in front of the front door for him to come home. " What took you so long?! I was running home and I looked behind me and I didn't see you! You're not allowed to wander off without me or Fiona keeping an eye on you! What were you up to, pixel-brain? What were you up to?! " Scourge said resentfully. It was clear that he still hadn't completely forgiven him for whatever he did to betray him.

Terrified of a potential punishment, Miles exclaimed, " Nothing! You ran off so suddenly! I didn't know what direction you went! I was lucky I found my way home as soon as I did! " Still not trusting him, Scourge responded, " You expect me to believe that's all you did, you little brat?! As if you wouldn't jump at the opportunity to do something sneaky against me the instant you were alone? Oh, please! " backing him up against the closed front door behind him, preparing to slap him on the back of the head again.

Trying to hide his overwhelming fear by acting angry, Miles shouted back at him, " Will you stop being so untrusting?! I have no reason to do _anything_ sneaky against you! You and Fiona are the only people willing to give me a home! You're the only people I trust! You're the most valuable people in my LIFE! Why are you still acting so paranoid that I'm going to randomly and inexplicably betray you when that would only make things _worse_ for me?! If you didn't want me to be unsupervised, you shouldn't have run off _without_ me! Why couldn't you have just lifted me into your arms and carried me with you, like you do with Fiona? "

" 'Cause she's my girlfriend! And you're… " Scourge shouted at him, only to trail off and look sad, nervous and hesitant. There was a silence, and Miles, trying to finish his sentence for him while wondering why he was having that reaction, said, " … The little traitor?... " with downcast eyes.

Miles thought, " _Well, I suppose it's better than, ' freak… ' Sort of._ " Scourge was struck silent by his depressed reaction. Miles clearly felt hurt from being treated like a traitor. It was as if he thought of being a traitor to him as something to be ashamed of. It was almost as if… he didn't want to be a traitor anymore.

The silence that followed felt heartbreaking, until finally, four seconds later, Scourge admitted free of all of his anger, " No. My little brother… " After a brief silence, he added in annoyance looking away from him, " My annoying little brother. " Hearing that stunned Miles into silence, and he looked at him with a combination of hope and sadness. It felt familiar, and he deeply appreciated the fact that he was able to bring himself to say it at all, and smiled a little in response.

Scourge told him, " I hate to admit it, but you've got a point. It's been weeks since you went back to me and months since you betrayed me, I shouldn't be treating you like a guaranteed traitor anymore. 'Sides, if I keep treating you like you're still my enemy, then of course you'll want revenge! How is that the right way to reward you for being so well-behaved most of the time? You're not in trouble, Miles. I shouldn't have left without warning you first. Next time I'm about to run home, I'll tell ya. " He smiled at him genuinely, and Miles, finally unable to resist temptation, threw his arms around him in a hug. Scourge was surprised and confused, but quickly returned the hug anyways, failing to realize that Fiona was watching with a relieved smile, about to get started on cooking the spaghetti for their dinner. 

For the next training session, Miles was taught how to create thunderclouds to generate rain. As Fiona put it, he had to, " Focus on increasing the amount of water vapor in the sky. Imagine dark thunderclouds that are heavy with water and about to burst, and snap your fingers! This will force those clouds to form exactly where you want and release their water, and you can have them rain as hard as you want! Don't worry, it'll be easy! " Miles was nervous about his first attempt, and was satisfied to discover that it was another ability that came naturally to him, even if the only real use he had for it was the intimidation factor because the water resulting from it was about as drinkable as you'd expect rainwater to be. He supposed he could drown his opponents with heavy enough rainwater, and short-circuiting some robots that weren't waterproof would be another possible use.

He was thrilled by feeling so powerful by creating thunderstorms at will, although he agreed with Fiona that he should resist doing it too often because messing with the weather too much could have severe consequences for the world in general, resulting in very heavy rains when it rained naturally at best and creating floods from his own rain at worst. Of course, he was very limited in the size of the area he could change the weather of, only being able to change the weather of an area the size of Coconut Island at largest, and usually only created thunderclouds just above his opponent, which would cease being a problem a couple miles away.

He could sense the lightning from the thunderclouds whether he generated them or not, feeling a strong connection with them, and was able to summon the lightning from the clouds to himself and even catch it and hold it in place, allowing him to save it for later and allowing him to prevent lightning from striking something he didn't want to. At first, he doubted that because lightning moved far faster than he could even think, but he soon began to realize that he could sense where lightning might strike before it even did, feeling the abnormal amount of electrons in the sky above a surface below it that was suspiciously bare of electrons itself. He felt stronger during and after a lightning storm.

Later on, he learned about heating things up. " I thought I could only control lightning, " Miles said in confusion. Scourge replied, " Heat waves are a part of weather too, you know. So focus on making a sort of mental connection with the air and it shaking at a ridiculous speed, and shake your hands like you're heating the air up, making sure to keep your wrist stiff, still and steady! It's mostly your fingers that you're shaking, not your whole hand. If you do it right, the part of the air you were focusing on will heat right up, and you'll be able to push it around with a quick pushing motion, sending it flying towards your target in seconds! "

By heating up the air in front of him too much on his first attempt, Miles caused it to burst into flames, creating a small fireball in front of him. This caused him to gasp and look frightened, but as he discovered when he made a pushing motion with his arms and caused it to get pushed back, he was still able to control it while it was in the form of burning gas. This essentially gave him fire powers. But it didn't come nearly as naturally to him as lightning power and wasn't nearly as convenient, requiring several seconds to summon the fire and another second to throw it. It wasn't like lightning where he could generate a ball of it in his hand and just throw it. And he couldn't directly control fire, only push it around using the wind. Those two factors combined meant that it wasn't as reliable as lightning was.

He found it the easiest to heat up fluids like air and water and the hardest to heat up solids, as he'd usually end up accidentally heating up the air nearby it instead. The best he could do to heat up objects was heat up the air nearby and send it towards the object in a hot wind until it warmed up enough. After heating up a fluid, he was taught how to move it, in a manner similar to moving the wind after making a mental connection with it. The fluid moved in the direction that his arms did until he specifically thought at it not to, and he had to learn to move his arms slowly and gracefully rather than in a stiff and quick manner to be more like the wind, guiding it away from him and towards a target. His mental connection with the heated up gas was the only thing preventing it from spreading and heating up all of the air around it to his detriment.

Right after that, he learned about cooling things down. Scourge explained, " Cooling stuff down is pretty easy, just repeat what you did to heat it up but in reverse! Shake your hand really fast again, but after the first split-second, start shaking it in the opposite direction that you used to. So if you started with moving your hand up and then down, do the reverse. Imagine that a part of the air around you is getting colder, and that it's entirely under your control! "

When Miles succeeded in doing that, he was told, " Now, changing the temperature of the air around you is pretty safe outdoors, but when you're inside, it's pretty risky. The last thing you want is for the heat wave you made to backfire on you! You can make sure that the hot air you're controlling doesn't expand over to you by controlling it with one hand, and cooling down the air that it's trying to heat up with your other hand! "

With that, Miles nervously got started on following his instructions, shaking one hand really quickly and moving the fingers of his other hand forwards and backwards in the opposite direction, and focusing on the idea of only one section of the air heating up while the air around it stubbornly refused to allow it to expand into it. It was difficult for Miles to resist the urge to shake both his hands the same way instead of moving them asymmetrically, but he eventually managed to do it, being able to cool the air around him to avoid the heat getting to him while still increasing the heat's temperature.

He was taught how to create hail shortly afterwards. Scourge said with a proud smile, " You're doing great! Now keep on making the air in front of you colder until it freezes into hail under your control! Then keep moving your arms around in a circle like you're creating a tornado and keep doing that for a couple seconds! It'll keep the hail from falling to the ground right away because it'll be kept in the air as the wind blows it around you and holds it for you. You got that, Miles? "

After Miles nodded and followed his instructions nervously, Scourge explained, " Now here's the fun part! You wanna use this hail as a weapon? Just imagine that it's being sharpened into icicles under your control, moving your fingers to draw the shape of an icicle – and don't stop moving your arms around without imagining that the wind will keep moving around, or the wind will stop and you'll have to make a tornado again. " Getting a little excited at the idea of attacking with this power, Miles mentally sharpened the hail snowflakes into icicles, and after achieving that, he made a throwing motion with his arms, causing the icicles to get thrown ahead of him and pierce into a nearby tree. Scourge nodded with a proud smile and his arms crossed, impressed by how he had figured out the next step all on his own. Miles had mastered controlling the frozen water vapor in the air.

Controlling the wind was the most difficult ability for him to relearn, as it was a lot harder for Fiona to describe to him than simply snapping his fingers or making throwing motions. Fiona explained, " Controlling the wind is basically an extension of what you did to keep the hail in the air above you, you've already done it before. But when you're entirely focused on controlling and speeding up the wind, it becomes a little tricky. Move your arms in wide circles in front of your body, going up and then down and then up again, like you're drawing the shape of a tornado. I'm not entirely sure how to describe it. Just do it in a way that feels natural and goes with the flow. Focus on the concept of the wind changing to the direction you want it to go and moving there at the speed that you want. Keep doing that until you feel more like you're one with the wind, moving gracefully rather than stiffly. I know you can do it, Miles! "

He followed Fiona's instructions, staying calm as he moving his arms in wide slow circles until he felt like he was gathering the air into his hands by moving it. After getting into the right mindset, he was able to affect it with his arm movements, calming himself into a trance-like state as he focused entirely on how he was moving the air with his hands. When he finally mastered it, he controlled the wind as if it was a natural extension of his body, and was able to quickly start controlling it as soon as he needed to.

When he was finished being retaught his powers, with the spindash being the last one he was taught, Scourge mentioned casually in the passing that he could attack with his tails as well, and discouraged him from bothering with it and punches and kicks when he was better off shooting lightning at his enemies for less physical effort. Miles was relieved, mainly because even using his tails to fly was slightly painful for him, and he didn't like to think about why that could've been. For all he knew, his tails had been broken at some point by vicious townspeople.

Relearning his abilities took weeks. Some of his abilities took days for him to master, with Scourge teaching him the technique on the first day and Fiona there to supervise him with a book to entertain herself as he trained to get it right.

After he relearned all of his abilities, he decided to continue his training to find out what else he could do with his powers, and Scourge agreed with the condition that his training time would be cut to only a half an hour from lack of necessity and only Fiona would supervise him. Using the knowledge that he could control electricity to his advantage, Miles was able to discover that by holding his hands in front of him like he was flinching, he could generate electricity from his palms and spread it around him in a circle, creating a barrier of electricity around him to discourage any physical attacks. He was later able to figure out that if he got electrocuted, he would be able to draw the foreign electricity out of his body just by thinking about forming into an energy ball above his palms, and then cause that energy ball to form an electric barrier around him to protect him until he was finished. When he'd finally have drawn all the electricity out, he'd throw the barrier of electricity he made out of it at the opponent, or even simply attack him physically while still surrounded by it, knowing the barrier would attack his target from sheer contact.

Upon seeing on television ice chunks raining from the sky, he realized that if ice chunks that large could qualify as part of the weather, he must have had the potential to control not just small snowflakes and hail, but ice as well. As a result, he was able to go from controlling mere snowflakes to controlling ice in general as a logical extension. Combining that with him learning to freeze things aside from the air, he was able to develop a technique where he froze the air below him and lifted up the resulting ice chunk using a raising arm motion, and then moving his arm in a rising circle to generate a tornado below the ice that would carry it with him only having to imagine himself moving his arm in a circle. As a result, he was able to develop not only a way to fly without using his tails, but developed the perfect method of escaping a battle in case he was too injured to fly away normally.

As he tested it out himself, he was able to do that even while lying down the whole time, making a frozen stretcher for himself that flew him back home while he was protected by electricity. The only problem was that he'd be lying against a frozen chunk of ice for a while and would immediately need warm blankets upon getting home, but that would be a small price to pay for a safe retreat. When he tested the technique out on a nearby rabbit, he realized that he was able to do the same for someone else as well, with his mental connection to the electricity, tornado and ice chunk staying no matter how far it went from him and continuing to carry out his instructions, bringing the confused rabbit all the way home surrounded by lightning on a frozen magic carpet. As soon as he realized he could do that, he decided that he would do that if any of his teammates needed him to. He was also able to freeze something in place by freezing the water vapor right up close to it and trapping it in ice, raising his hand as he shook it to freeze it from the bottom to the top. Since it was a non-lethal method of rendering his opponents incapable of attacking, he looked forward to using it against people, and proceeded to do so on a regular basis, waiting until they had been knocked down or pinned to the ground by Scourge and were unable to attack at the moment.

But even after he relearned all of the abilities he forgot, he still had nothing but holes in his memory. As much as he tried to be thankful for not remembering the bad parts of his life, he ultimately couldn't shake off the feelings of frustration at his amnesia and curiosity about his past, and as much as he tried to tell himself that he didn't want to remember anything, he eventually started giving into his curiosity.

He kept a secret notepad in his room and took rough notes on it to keep track of what felt like it should spark a memory but didn't, with the names of those triggers surrounded by sentences explaining the potential conclusions and thoughts he had about it. He listened intently to what Scourge and Fiona said every time they mentioned his past, and wrote down everything he learned as soon as he was alone and expected to be in bed. Every word that gave him a feeling of familiarity, he would write down in the center of a page on his notepad, and surround it with words signifying the emotions and opinions and potential conclusions he associated with it, along with words that he felt naturally led from it and everything he learned about that particular word. On one page, he ended up writing in the center, " Alicia, " and above it, " Queen Alicia? Was she actual royalty or just stuck-up? Or was Scourge dating her and called her his queen like with Fiona? " and to the right of it, " Ruthless, bitter, serious, paranoid, easily worried, understanding, compromising when it came to me, Sally? " with each trait being circled separately and with them all connected to the central word by arrows. But even that wasn't enough to fully piece together his past. In order to learn enough to feel satisfied, he needed to take some more drastic measures.


	6. Chapter 6

Scourge and Miles were passing by the inner city school when they heard a teenaged bully said to a kid wearing glasses near the inner city, " …you little freak! " The instant that final word was uttered, they stopped dead in their tracks with a surprised jolt and turned around to face the one who said it. Hearing that word, and spoken with such hatred, caused Miles to tense up and feel tight as he looked at him apprehensively, his pupils shrunken as he looked frightened and broke out in a cold sweat, trying to force a glare to avoid looking weak when his shaking shoulders gave it away. He wasn't sure why he reacted that way, overwhelmed with fear with a hint of sadness, but he had a sinking feeling that there was a good reason why. He could almost hear the jeering voices of hundreds of different cruel hateful voices at various different times and places calling him by that exact word and telling him he didn't belong in the world, and he had a hard time telling whether it was real or imagined, whether he was imagining it and making it up as an overreaction or if he was having a posttraumatic flashback to a memory he thought he had forgotten.

He didn't remember what the bullies looked like, but he had a strong idea of how he felt in response to their hatred; devastated, confused, lonely, frustrated at the unfairness of it all, and getting increasingly bitter and vengeful the more his continued kindness and patience was rewarded with hatred. He wondered if this treatment was what caused him to have the personality that Scourge implied that he had, acting condescending and arrogant to avoid feeling worthless and looking weak. He couldn't look weak anymore. There was no benefit to it if it wouldn't make them treat him better.

Meanwhile, Scourge looked at the bully in surprise and anger, quickly glanced at Miles with concern, and then looked back at the bully with his arms crossed and a bitter but self-assured smirk, as if to reassure Miles, " _I'll kick his ass for ya._ " With that, he ran towards the tall brown-haired teenager in a green blur, punched him in the face to knock him to the ground, and started homing-attacking and bounce-attacking him with vicious vengeance, giving him a well-deserved beat-down while he screamed in terror, the kid who was insulted by him looking surprised and worried only to calm down and smile nervously at realizing that he wasn't next.

In addition to looking scared from not being used to Scourge's vicious way of fighting yet, Miles was confused and shocked at Scourge's reaction. At first, he wondered if he knew how it felt to be called that, but when he looked back on the way he looked at him before attacking the bully, he realized; Scourge was standing up for him. And it didn't feel like the first time, either. After figuring that out, he started to feel like a weight was lifted from his shoulders, and a wave of relief went over him as he smiled in satisfaction at the bully getting what he deserved, finding it pleasing and relaxing that Scourge cared enough to do that for him. It didn't make the fact that he was reminded of being called a freak any less hurtful, it didn't completely erase the negative emotions, but it at least added positive ones to distract from them. He wondered if this was why he was friends with Scourge in the first place. He started out as a bodyguard from bullies and just happened to turn out to be controlling and short-tempered afterwards. But as long as he kept fulfilling his original duty and standing up for him, Miles supposed he could put up with it.

After a few minutes of attacking the bully with him trying in vain to fight back, Scourge ended up smacking him into a nearby fountain, humiliating him in front of all of the children on the recess field, and said with a triumphant smirk, " That's what happens when you call someone a freak! " As the bully looked at him in confusion, he said angrily, " Bet you didn't expect to be caught by the king of thieves. Now I'm gonna give you two options! Either I finish you off and rid the world of scum, or you fork over all your cash to pay tribute to my teammate here! " and pointed over at Miles, who triumphantly shot lightning out of his hands into the sky for the intimidation factor and smirked at the bully with his arms crossed at him getting what he deserved. " _Finally, things are how they should be for once. I could get used to this,_ " he thought happily.

Frightened and confused, the bruised and beaten bully quickly handed Miles all the money in his wallet and said, " I-I wasn't trying to offend you! I-I'm sorry! I'll never call someone that again! P-Please don't kill me! " Miles took the money and placed it in the pocket of his red turtleneck sweater, saying in the condescending way he was expected to say it, " _Thank_ you. " With that, the two of them ran home in differently-colored blurs, satisfied that they were able to get away with it.

When Miles got home, he was very quick to write in his notepad his experience that day and the implications of it, and closed it up. As he hid it under his bed once again, he hoped that no one would ever discover it and read it, realizing that it was becoming more and more like a diary by the day, even if it was only dedicated to him keeping track of clues to his past and trying to piece it together, as it held his deepest darkest secret, and he was terrified of that secret getting out.

Unable to stand not knowing his past anymore, Miles finally decided to approach Sonic and ask him about his past. By sneaking out of the house late at night, Miles made his way to the Mystic Ruins, thankful that the guards weren't in front of his house at night, and nervously took the train to Sonic's house, incredibly grateful that there was no one in the train to stare at him judgmentally at the moment. When the train stopped at the Mystic Ruins, he ran out of it, went down the wooden staircase in front of it and up the nearby hill, and forced himself to ring the doorbell on Sonic's house, hoping he wouldn't notice how he was trembling.

After waiting for the most tense and suspenseful minute of his life, Miles finally saw Sonic open the door and say in confusion, " Miles?! " at seeing him. He would've been more apprehensive if he wasn't tired from being woken up from his sleep. He stared at Miles in suspicious confusion, only to feel sorry for him upon noticing that Miles was trembling and forcing himself to look serious to hide his anxiety. " Why are you here? " Sonic asked, feeling concerned about him and wishing he wasn't. Miles crossed his arms to try to hide his trembling, and questioned him while forcing himself to look brave, " What do you know about me? "

After a brief silence, Sonic asked, " What do you mean? All I found out about you recently was that apparently now you have weather powers! And that you're working for Scourge again. What else do you want me to say? " still annoyed with him for attacking his little brother figure. Still trying to keep a brave face, Miles took a deep breath and summoned up the courage to ask him, " What do you know… about my past? "

There was a silence as Sonic let it all sink in. Miles had amnesia. Why else would he ask a question like that? " How hard DID you hit your head? " Sonic replied with concern, and while Miles was unhappy about him figuring out he had amnesia, the concern in his tone at least reassured him that he wasn't going to take advantage of it.

Miles sighed, and admitted awkwardly with his arms still crossed, " I have no memory of anything in my past before I received those injuries. I'm reluctant to tell anyone about it because I don't want anything to go wrong. I don't want people to take advantage of me or lie to me about my past instead of telling me the truth, and I don't trust Scourge not to do that. But for some reason I can't quite fathom, I feel like I can trust you. I don't know why. I've heard you're another one of my enemies. But you don't seem to be that type of person, and if you knew me before I was injured… You could tell me a lot… I know, you want to ask, why should I help you? But you're a hero, aren't you? That's what everyone says! And heroes help people, don't they? I-I'm not aware of everything I did to you as an enemy, so I'm not entirely clear on whether I deserve your help, but I'm desperate! I don't like feeling clueless and ignorant because there's so much about my past I don't know! I'm better off not knowing, and I don't need to, but I can't help being curious. So, um… Would you please tell me your experiences with me?... A-And not tell Scourge I snuck out to see you? "

After a shocked silence from Sonic as he let it all sink in, he said with concern, " Alright, if that's what you want. But it'll take a while. Come inside, it's cold out here, " and Miles followed him into his home in confusion at his compassion, closed the door behind him, and followed him to the laundry room where they could talk in private.

Once they were in the laundry room with the door closed behind them, Sonic told him everything he knew about his past, which wasn't very much; he didn't even have much information on how Scourge usually treated him. All he could really tell him was what he did as his enemy and how he betrayed Scourge in the first place. He told him that he didn't know him for very long and the only one who knew him long enough to tell him everything about his past he wanted to know was Scourge.

Before Miles walked home sadly, Sonic told him that he knew Shadow had experience with amnesia and managed to get his memories back from Chaos Emeralds. Miles wasn't sure that he would be capable of finding all the Chaos Emeralds, especially not by himself and with his reputation.

The next day, a few hours before dinner, Miles snuck out of the room while Fiona was reading and managed to find the green Chaos Emerald that Fiona had hidden in the kitchen. He sighed, and held it carefully in his hand, staring into it and feeling the energy coming from it. " Come on, spark something, anything! I want to know my past, no matter how traumatic… " he whispered to it.

Just as he feared, the emerald gave him a terrifying flashback. He had broken into a house to take a water bottle from the fridge, and just as he was about to leave it, the owner of the house spotted him, and shouted, " It's the freak! Get him! " Before he knew it, three different teenaged gang members were chasing him down shouting insults and threatening his life, and he was running through the woods terrified, panting in exhaustion and hoping he would successfully evade them.

Just as he was about to completely leave them in the dust, Miles tripped on a tree trunk in the woods and fell to the hard ground, smacking his forehead from the impact and getting grass stains on the front of him. Fear overwhelmed him as he tried to push himself up to a sitting position and get back to running again, only to be slowed down immensely by his coming exhaustion, knowing exactly what usually happened to him in a situation like that. " Got ya, you little monster! " a black-shirted wolf Mobian shouted as he tackled him and pinned him to the ground, the rest of his hateful gang catching up with him. The other two teenagers with him, a jackel Mobian and a bear Mobian, both wearing black clothes, soon caught up with him and started kicking him while he was down, and Miles endured the pain with his eyes squeezed shut and his fists clenched, resisting the urge to scream for help, knowing from experience that it only attracted more bullies for him.

The one pinning him to the ground let him go and stood up, only to punch him in the chest the instant he started trying to sit up, sending him falling backwards in pain. He grimaced with his eyes squeezed shut as he was kicked and punched, soon becoming covered in cuts and bruises as his tails, which he would've tried to defend himself with, were kicked and stomped on repeatedly by the jackel across from him. Suddenly, Miles heard a ringtone coming from the jackel's pocket, and stared at him in anxious hope as he pulled out his cell phone, hoping he would be called back home. " What, you got everything ready?... Good! We'll be right there! " he said, put the phone back in the pocket of his gray shorts, and said threateningly, " Guess what, mutant?! We're gonna get rid of you once and for all! " Miles gasped looking frightened, and as all three gang members started dragging him by the tails through the woods back the way he came, panic ran through his mind and overwhelmed him, making him plead, " No, no, no! Don't do this! " out of desperation, knowing it wasn't safe to scream.

After several painful minutes, they let go of his tails, and the instant he tried to get up to run away, the wolf Mobian went in front of him and grabbed him tightly, and the bear Mobian and him worked together to force him to a standing position before shoving him to a wooden stake with piles of straw on the grass at the bottom of it. Miles desperately tried smacking the wolf Mobian in front of him with his tails as he kept him pinned to the stake while the other gang members tied him to it tightly with rope bound in tight knots at the other side of it, but it wasn't long before his tails were restrained by the ropes with the rest of his cut and bruised body. " You'll pay for that, freak! " he shouted furiously. Trying to hold back tears and look brave, Miles shouted back with an angry look, " I'm not a freak! "

The wolf Mobian shouted with his fists clenched, " Of course you are! You're a two-tailed mutant who's stolen from our island for years and caused a spike in thunderstorms! It's your fault this place is called the Island of Storms! It's your fault my dad went out of business 'cause we stopped getting tourists! Either you have some sort of freaky connection with the weather that's causing all this lightning or the universe itself is rebelling against your existence! Either way, you're something that shouldn't exist! You're not a kid, you're not even just a mutant! You're a demon! You're an abomination of nature that everyone on the island is ashamed of, and now we're finally gonna be rid of you forever! " Miles gasped as he opened up a box of matches and lit one of them with a cigarette lighter, saying, " Goodbye, _Tails,_ and good riddance! " as the other two gang members glared at him vindictively.

Miles' situation seemed to be hopeless. He was covered in aching bruises and stinging cuts from head to toe, tied to a wooden pole by tight ropes that kept him restrained to it just above the ground, and there were three vicious bullies bringing out matches and setting the pile of straw beneath him on fire, knowing full well that the fire would spread to the pole directly behind him. He was too terrified to even scream, knowing that if he did, it would only attract more people to abuse him. " _Please, please, no! I'm too young to die!_ " Miles thought in despair, breaking out in a sweat and shaking. He wished desperately that it would start raining, remembering that lightning storms tended to increase his chances of surviving encounters with vicious townspeople every time they happened, but as he looked up at the clear blue skies, he began to lose hope. It would take too long for the next storm to happen and save him. Finally, giving up all hope, he started to scream in fear as the fire spread from the straw surrounding the stake to the stake itself.

But a second before the fire could spread to him, a blue and black blur sped around the fire beneath him and put it out in an instant by getting the flames blown out from a blue tornado of wind. As soon as the fire beneath him was put out, Miles watched in shock as his bullies were suddenly slammed to the ground and beaten up by a blue and black blur moving at an incredible velocity, with what looked like a blue and black sphere with a blur trailing behind it slamming into each bully one by one and knocking them on their backs, the wind roaring heroically behind him. After that, the blur stopped moving around at an incredible speed to stand on the ground in front of him, revealing a blue hedgehog looking to be about 12 years old wearing a black leather jacket with a fiery skull and crossbones design on the back, black sunglasses with gray lenses, and black boots. Looking very much like a typical punk, it was shocking seeing him intimidate the people who tried to burn him at the stake instead of joining in.

" Leave him alone! " the juvenile delinquent exclaimed furiously with his fists clenched, as the bullies painfully managed to stand themselves up looking terrified of him. " Run! " the wolf Mobian exclaimed after cursing in fear, and just like that, all of the bullies who were threatening to kill him were running away in a panic. The young criminal shouted after them, " He's a child! " with a vengeful fist in the air as they ran away from him, only letting them get away reluctantly. The person who saved him looked almost exactly like a younger version of Sonic the Hedgehog. The only difference was the clothes he was wearing.

When the bullies ran out of sight, the blue hedgehog sighed, ran over to just behind the stake Miles was tied to in a blue and black blur and started untying the knots of the rope holding him to the stake, not noticing how stunned and bewildered the child he was rescuing looked. As he untied the ropes keeping him against the stake, he spoke like a typical teenaged punk in spite of his young age. In fact, he spoke just like Scourge. The memory was particularly confusing in that he looked like Sonic, had the same voice as Sonic, and even shared his scent, but he didn't feel like him at all.

Scourge spoke bitterly about the bullies who threatened to kill him, grumbling angrily under his breath, " That'll learn 'em. If I ever find those bastards again, I'll kill 'em, " as he finished untying him and the ropes fell off him, making him land in the burned and singed straw beneath him and have to quickly stand himself up. Unfortunately, the bitterness in his tone came off as so menacing that Miles was frightened enough to yelp and instinctively run away from him the instant he was set free, not trusting Scourge not to hurt him for his mutation as he tried to walk up to him. The instant he started running, he began spinning his two tails behind him like a propeller and generating a blast of wind that propelled him forwards at an incredible velocity, getting him away from the criminal who saved him within seconds. Shocked and panicked at the injured child he freed running away from him in a yellow blur that almost instantly disappeared over the horizon, Scourge shouted after him in panic, " Hey, wait! " and ran after him in a blue and black blur, not understanding why he would fear his rescuer.

Miles vividly remembered how frightened and confused he was at looking over his shoulder at Scourge running after him and wondering how for the first time, someone he was running from was able to effortlessly catch up to him. Most of the people he evaded when he ran away from them spinning his tails like a propeller would only be able to catch up to him quickly when he was exhausted, and had to run after him for a long time predicting his planned route through the island in order to finally catch up to him after he was cornered or collapsed. " _How is he catching up to me? HOW IS HE FASTER THAN ME?!_ " he thought, his brain overwhelmed with panic as he believed he was running for his life, being too afraid to believe in his rescuer's good intentions.

Getting desperate as he ran through the woods, Miles jumped into the air, bent forwards, and started spinning his tails above his head, flying away from Scourge just before he was able to grab him. It slightly hurt using his tails to fly from all of the injuries they had sustained in his life, and he looked determined to hide his pain as he flew over the woods above him. Scourge looked up at the sight of him flying away from him with wide eyes and a shocked look on his face, which only made Miles even more upset as he misinterpreted it as a negative reaction, causing him to look away from him and fly higher into the sky before he could see Scourge smile in approval or hear his comment, " Cool! "

Miles sighed in relief, and said quietly, " That was close… " getting further and further away from his pursuer. But it didn't take long for him to realize how tired he was. His tails started spinning slower and slower above his head as he panted in exhaustion, until finally, they stopped moving without his consent and he started falling out of the sky terrified, too tired to even scream, and squeezed his eyes shut in fear as he prepared himself for a hard impact with the ground below and the inevitable beating that would follow.

He was surprised and terrified to find himself landing in the ocean with a large splash, and after several seconds of being overwhelmed with fear sinking into the water certain that he was going to drown, the current of the ocean quickly threw him onto the hard sandy beach soaking wet, giving him even more bruises from the rough impact with the sand below him. Trying and failing to wipe away the cold water on his face with his dripping wet gloves, Miles coughed up water and gasped for air, and struggled to crawl up the beach away from the waves hitting him, only to gasp and look scared again at the blue hedgehog grabbing his wrists saying unhappily, " Lemme help, " and pulling him over to the grass uphill. After that, he sat in front of him and pulled his wrists up to his shoulders to bring him to a sitting position. As soon as he let go of him, Miles jumped back in fear, startled from the physical contact from being so close to a potential bully, and Scourge asked anxiously, " Are you alright? What the hell happened to you?! "

There was a silence, and Scourge stood up from the ground slowly and stared at him in concern, noticing how even after he helped him again, the injured kid was still trembling from his presence. Miles started begging him, " Please! Don't hurt me! _Please!_ " losing all hope that he could ever escape from him without being caught up to. Looking awkward with looking like a softie, the blue hedgehog said unhappily, " I won't, relax! I'm not gonna hurt ya! Why would I hurt ya after I went through the trouble of saving your life?! I just wanna talk! "

Miles was stunned by that response, and stared at him in a mixture of paranoid suspicion and confusion. After another awkward silence, Scourge took a few steps back to prove his point, giving him some space. He said with a nervous smile, " See? " and forced himself to patiently wait for Miles to get the courage to speak to him again, hoping it would reassure him. He was far from the patient type, but for someone so easily startled, he would have to be.

Miles looked up at him in complete and utter bewilderment, trying to figure out what that hedgehog was up to. No one had ever done that for him before. No one ever gave him some space when he was intimidated by them. In fact, now that he stopped to think about it, that criminal really had saved his life, and no one had ever saved his life before. Usually, whenever someone helped him, they would proceed to hurt him right away, revealing that they were only luring him into a false sense of security, so this one hedgehog not hurting him by now was very shocking, to say the least. What made this kid so different? Miles was wary of letting himself believe that he had good intentions, but he still wanted to know exactly what he was planning and why he helped him. After several seconds of careful consideration, he decided to stay where he was and listen to what he had to say, with curiosity about his intentions getting the better of him.

" Who _are_ you? " Miles questioned, still being on edge but trying to put on a brave face. Scourge smiled proudly and pointed to himself saying, " I'm Sonic! Sonic the Hedgehog! The world's _fastest_ hedgehog, and the most badass law-breaker alive! I'm here as a tourist for the day, " only for his smile to become more strained as he asked him awkwardly, " But enough about _me,_ kiddo. How 'bout you?... Mind tellin' me your name? " being painfully aware of how odd he was acting and how careful he had to be in that situation. One wrong move and the kid would try to run from him again.

After a brief silence, Miles answered warily, " M-My name is Miles. Miles… um… Prower _…_ " wondering how he could use the information against him. He had to struggle for a moment to remember what his last name was supposed to be; he hadn't heard it since he was three years old living in the island's orphanage, and he barely remembered that far back. No one ever called by his name. Why would this kid be any different?

Scourge cocked an eyebrow at the child's response and said with a joking jovial demeanor and his hands on his hips, " Miles? Sounds to _me_ like the name of a mild-mannered balding middle-aged _office worker._ You sure you wanna be called that, kiddo? Doesn't really suit ya, " and chuckled lightheartedly, hoping to lighten the mood. Surprised by Scourge's insensitivity when he was trying to get his trust, Miles replied resentfully with his arms crossed while looking away from him, " It's better than _Tails,_ " and tried to not look too upset. Before Scourge could say anything else, Miles said bitterly with his voice cracking a little by the end,

" Why are you playing these mind games with me? Why don't you just start beating me up for being a _freak_ already and get it _over_ with? " Scourge looked taken aback from being accused of being a bully, and gave him an unhappy and confused look as Miles stared him down suspiciously with a wary and untrusting look on his face. He wanted to meet someone that he could trust without consequences, more than anything. He wanted to have a friend, but he didn't want to get his hopes up. He didn't want to let his guard down just for his hopes to be crushed.

Looking awkward and not sure what to do, Scourge scratched the back of his neck nervously before kneeling down to Miles' eye level and placing his hand on his shoulder, causing him to jump, gasp and flinch in preparation for a punch in the face. " Would you relax and stop being so _paranoid?_ " Scourge said quietly in a mixture of concern and exasperation, trying to keep his patience. This was not a situation he was used to dealing with. He had never tried to be patient and understanding with someone before. He had never acted that compassionately towards anyone before, but if he wanted to keep Miles from constantly running away from him, he had no other choice.

" It's not paranoid if I'm right! Everyone's out to get me! Everyone on the _island_ is against me! Everyone in the _world_ is against me! I have _every_ reason to be wary when the entire _world_ is my enemy! It hates me for being a _mutant_ and wants me _DEAD!..._ I _hate_ them! I hate _all_ of them! Why do they have to _hate_ me?!... Why won't they just give me a chance?! " Miles exclaimed angrily, his voice cracking at various points. He was still terrified of the mysterious stranger in front of him holding his shoulder, but since he was certain that being hurt by him was inevitable, he figured he might as well try to look brave before the beat-down and express his frustrations instead of holding them all inside. He was done with trying to get people to like him when all they did was hate him for something he couldn't help. He hated the people who treated him that way! He hated them! But saying those words out loud only made his eyes start to water as he was forced to dwell on how miserable his life had been. " It's not _fair…_ " he whimpered sadly with his voice breaking, looking down in an attempt to hide his facial expression, and still not sure if Scourge's concerned expression was faked or not. His eyes were watering, and he had to force the tears back, blinking rapidly and irregularly in desperation to keep his dignity.

" You're right, Miles. It's NOT fair… No one should be treated like that. " Scourge said unhappily with a serious expression, in a quiet voice full of sympathy that immediately got Miles' attention. He had never been called by his actual name before. This stranger was doing nothing but subverting his expectations. It was getting harder and harder for him to believe that he was just lying.

" But I can assure you right now that now you've met me, you're never gonna get hurt by those bastards _ever again._ You want a bodyguard, kid? You've _got_ one… " Scourge told him, with a serious expression that looked rather menacing to him. Miles looked away in confusion and thought deeply about whether or not he should believe him. Scourge did go out of his way to beat up his bullies, so it wouldn't make sense that he wouldn't truly be against them. He really did seem like he wanted to find anyone who bullied him and beat them up. He genuinely wanted to be his bodyguard. But why? If he just wanted to express his violent urges and have someone to beat up, why didn't he pick him instead? That's what everyone else did.

" Why? " Miles questioned in a whisper, sounding far sadder than he meant to as he finally looked him in the eyes again. Scourge sighed in reluctance with downcast eyes, and awkwardly admitted to him, " Because while _they_ might think your second tail is a bad thing, I don't… I admit it, okay? I admit it! I _don't_ think of you as a freak... " whispering the final word of his sentence to help diminish its impact. There was a silence as Miles tried to let it sink in, finding the concept of someone accepting of him completely alien and unthinkable, and Scourge let go of his shoulder and continued,

" Don't think this means I'm a softie or anything. It means I'm not a complete _idiot_ like _they_ are! If you didn't have that second tail, you wouldn't be able to _fly_ or be the only person I've ever met who I actually have a _challenge_ catching up with! You wouldn't have your speed, and you wouldn't have your flight. You got a _lot_ of potential, kid, and I _respect_ that about'cha. You're not like _most_ little brats who aren't really capable of anything. You're the best kid I ever _met!_ Sure you're different from everyone else, but that's what makes you _awesome!_ It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with ya! It means you're somethin' _special._ If the _dumbasses_ on this island are too damn _blind_ to see how _cool_ you are, then that's their loss! But I'm not. You're the coolest person I ever met, Miles, and I want'cha to come live with _me._ "

Miles gasped, and said sadly, " What?!... W-Wait, y-you actually _like_ my second tail? You… You really _aren't_ just playing tricks on me? " trying to hide the cracking of his voice by whispering. He had an incredibly sad expression on his face, unable to continue hiding how heartbroken he was at being so deprived of compassion and kindness for an aspect of him that wasn't even a flaw. As Miles blinked rapidly and irregularly to try to fight back the tears, Scourge tried as hard as he could to avoid having his expression show how worried he was, but when he realized at last that he couldn't hide it, he stopped resisting temptation and said quietly, " Oh, come here, " and put his arms around Miles in a hug, pulling him close to his chest while overwhelmed with sympathy.

Panicked and bewildered, Miles exclaimed, " W-What are you doing?! Let me go! Wh-What?! Wh-Why are you squeezing me with your body?! " instinctively feeling like he was in danger. Caught off guard from his bizarre reaction, Scourge loosened his grip telling him, " It's called a hug, " and let him go looking concerned.

Miles immediately pulled away from the blue hedgehog with shades in a confused panic. " I didn't do it too tight, did I?... I-I dunno, 'cause I've never done it before… Never really had anyone do it for _me,_ either… so… " Scourge said awkwardly, his eyes darting around as he scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. " Hug?... What's a… " Miles said quietly to himself, realizing what that word meant and remembering when he had seen it happen before. He had never been hugged before. Even when his bullies pretended to be nice to him, they never went through the lengths of hugging him. There was a silence as he let it all sink in, and after a few stifling seconds, he looked Scourge in the eyes again and said sadly, " I didn't think anyone else knew what it was like to have never been hugged before… "

Scourge sighed at looking like he had gone soft. " _Ah, well. I'll have plenty of time to show him what a badass I am,_ " he thought, and admitted, " You're the only person I've met that I respect. And that's sayin' a lot. I have high standards! I admit it, you're a cool kid, and I wanna get to know ya better. I don't wanna leave ya here on this island all bruised and cut up and have you dyin' on me so that I never see ya again. You're hurt, remember? So unless you have a safe way to get bandages and the like, the smartest thing for you to do right now is come home with me. Those cuts will get infected if they're left alone too long. It's bad enough they're dirty and got seawater on 'em. If anything, you're on a time limit. 'Sides, you're like what, four years old? " " I'm turning five tomorrow, " Miles said in annoyance at being patronized. He was more than capable of treating his injuries himself. He knew that all too well. Although, he'd rather be patronized for being a kid than for being a mutant, so he supposed he should be thankful for the trade-off.

" So five then. Exactly. You're too young to have to be living in the wilderness surviving on your own. Leaving a five-year-old kid alone and injured in the woods on an island where everyone hates him?! I admit I'm not exactly the most responsible guy around, but I still got standards, you know?! I'm doing this for your own good! I'm not taking no for an answer. I'm gettin' you home and off this freaking island. I don't care if you somehow grew attached to it in the time you suffered here. You're better off living with me. I've got a big fancy house just waitin' for you to live in it! With all the food and water and TV that you could _ever_ need! And I'll make you happier than you have _ever_ been! I'm sure of it. "

With the tears finally starting to escape his eyes, Miles looked down at the stinging cuts and aching bruises that covered his injured torso, arms, and tails – _especially_ his tails - and realized that he truly did need his help. If Scourge really did intend to bring him home with him, his life was going to change forever… and for the better. And even if he wasn't taking him where he said he would, going with him was still his only chance of getting medical attention quickly and safely, and he was too tired to risk getting it the way he usually did, by breaking into the homes of the people who hated him so much and stealing from them what he needed to survive. He was already a criminal. He supposed that living with a criminal who wanted to protect him wouldn't be so bad. Even if he pressured him into stealing things for him, he wouldn't be doing anything that he didn't already do, so trying to have moral qualms about it would make him a hypocrite. But there was just one problem he could think of.

" W-Won't the people who live with you have trouble accepting me? E-Even if you like me, which I still don't quite believe you do, there's no way your parents or your friends would, " Miles finally stammered, embarrassed as he dried his tears in front of him. He always tried as hard as he could not to look weak, because that only caused people to laugh at him or be dismissive of him as a crybaby and hate him even more, saying that he had a persecution complex. But Scourge was giving him every indication that he wouldn't do that.

Scourge reluctantly admitted, " That won't be a problem, trust me. My parents care more about their jobs than me, so even if they noticed you with me, they wouldn't get involved. They'd say anything just to get _away_ from me, so even if they _don't_ approve, screw 'em! The servants at my mansion won't complain, they only care about gettin' paid. And my _friends?..._ Well… I'm thinking of joining a gang _some_ day, but I haven't found anyone willing to work with me yet. Aside from you. " Miles said unhappily, " _You_ don't have any friends _either?_ " He didn't know why he was so surprised. Scourge didn't seem like the most likable guy around. He wore a leather jacket and spoke like a punk, after all. Then again, Miles himself used to be a very likable little kid and people still hated him.

" No, not yet, anyway. Until I met you, I've been pretty damn lonely. So if you come along with me, that'll change. It's not just _you_ who's gonna benefit from this, so if you're still all skeptical of my generosity and wondering what's in it for me, there ya go, that's the catch. The closest thing there is to one. So what'dya wanna do, Miles? Do you wanna come live with me?... Or do ya wanna spend the rest of your life alone? " Scourge replied with a serious look on his face. Faced with the threat of losing what might be the only friend he could ever have, Miles started shaking with an upset look before hugging his chest, which was exposed from him not having his leather jacket zipped up, and begging him, " Take me with you! _Please!_ Take me home… "

Scourge sighed in relief at finally getting the kid to change his mind about him, and said to him with a pleased smile, " That's just what I wanted to hear. " and gave him a hug back with one arm and a gentle caress of his head with the other.

After that, he lifted him into his arms, carrying him by supporting his back and the back of his knees, and Miles exclaimed in confused nervousness, " W-What are you doing?! " not being used to someone carrying him without malicious intent.

Scourge rolled his eyes and said with a grin, " It'll be a lot faster if I carry ya home. I can run at the speed of sound after all, and while you're _damn_ fast too, you're not as fast as me. Come on, Tails, it'll be fun! Hold on! " Looking worried, Miles gasped and quickly grabbed onto his shoulders and put his head over one of them, keeping himself as close to him as he could get away with as Scourge started running through the woods with him at an incredible speed, the wind rushing past the two of them.

" I-If you don't think I'm a freak, then why'd you call me _Tails?_ " Miles said warily, getting suspicious again while still not regretting deciding to come live with him. After all, he was still the person who treated him the best, even if he was insensitive. And Scourge's insensitivity seemed to be more the result of him genuinely not knowing any better, rather than offending him out of genuine malice. That was more than he could say for his bullies.

" It's just a playful nickname, Miles, _relax!_ I don't think Tails _has_ to be an _insult._ I think it's a _great_ name! You're being named after the _coolest_ thing about you! Why not like a name that suits you so well? It's like how my name's Sonic and I run at the speed of sound! Sure, that makes me different from everyone else, but that's something to be proud of! 'Cause the thing that makes me different makes me _better_ than them, 'cause they don't have the cool powers that I do! Same applies to you! Don't ya think, Tails? " Scourge said with a genuine smile, in a playful friendly tone that Miles had never been spoken to with before.

Miles was speechless. He couldn't imagine such a hurtful nickname as Tails being anything but insulting. Scourge really _was_ tactless. But he made a good point. Logically, he really should be proud of his second tail because of the useful abilities it granted him, so why wouldn't he appreciate being called Tails if it wasn't meant as an insult? Instead, it was used as a symbol of his competence, of what he was capable of. He wasn't sure if he'd ever be entirely okay with it, but he didn't want to look weak by admitting that and looking like he had been traumatized by his treatment for the rest of his life, so rather than letting Scourge figure out that he had PTSD, he tried to downplay it and change the subject.

" I-It's just that the n-name _Tails_ sounds _childish,_ that's all! Miles sounds more, uh, _mature_ and, uh, _sophisticated._ It's not like my unique abilities are the _only_ good things about me. I-I'm rather intelligent, too. I-I may even be a _genius,_ to be quite frank, " he said with a forced smile, intentionally using more advanced vocabulary to try to look smart and mature. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate Scourge treating him like he was younger than him, as long as that led to affection and protection. He just wanted to be taken seriously by him, that's all. He had been treated dismissively for his entire life, and while being dismissed for his age wasn't nearly as bad as being dismissed for being a mutant, it still felt terrible to the point of making him worry that he was thought of as worthless, and he didn't want to be treated like that anymore.

" A genius, huh? Sounds promising. You sure? " Scourge replied with a grin, realizing that he might be able to personally benefit from being friends with a child who not only had the powers of super speed and flight, but was a genius as well. He sure was lucky to have met him. " W-Well, I haven't actually gotten the chance to go to school, because as you may have already figured out, I don't have any parents to send me there and the schools don't want a mutant there anyways. So m-my knowledge is limited. But I _can_ educate myself if I get my hands on enough books, and what I lack in education, I completely make up for in pattern recognition, and strategizing and, retaining knowledge and so on, so my IQ may be surprisingly high. And I-I've always been interested in music, so if I obtained for myself a violin or piano, I could display my genius through music! I-Impressive, huh? " Miles said, having a nervous smile from insecurity at certain points from knowing that he was trying too hard to impress him. He didn't want Scourge to think he was just going to be a burden on him because he'd have to protect him all the time.

" Yeah, it is! Imagine that, me having a supergenius for a friend! How cool is that?! I'm glad I met'cha, Tails. Meetin' you is the best thing that's ever happened to me! I have a feeling that our lives are gonna get a whole lot better! " Scourge replied, as the two of them approached the luxury ship that he had gotten to take him to the island.

After setting Miles down on the ground to allow him to walk alongside him and leading him onto the deck of the ship, Scourge walked with him on the way to its medical ward, holding him by the wrist to keep him following him after realizing how nervous Miles was at seeing all the people working on the ship staring at his second tail in confusion.

" Just ignore 'em, Miles. If even a _single_ one of these guys is mean to ya, I'll pummel 'em to the ground, " Scourge told him as Miles tried to focus on looking forwards at him and not look at the dozens of confused stares he was getting, with the people looking at him in concern at seeing his wounds first before being distracted from their pity by his second tail, just like what happened with everyone else. Under normal circumstances, Miles would've found the menacing tone Scourge spoke with terrifying, but in the context he used it in, reaffirming that he would protect him, he found it comforting, but still not enough to distract himself from the fear. He couldn't stand the fact that everyone working on the ship was stopping their work and staring at him in shocked confusion and curiosity. " _Why can't there be even a SINGLE public place where I'm NOT the center of attention?_ " Miles thought in hopeless frustration, as Scourge finally brought him into the medical ward of the ship.

As soon as the two of them entered the medical ward, Scourge let go of Miles' wrist and closed the door behind him. They were in a small blue room with a hospital bed and several cupboards and drawers to the right of them, and a nurse was standing at the opposite end of it. Scourge said threateningly, " Hey, nurse! There's a new patient for ya! I'll cover the costs, so make it snappy! " trying to sound annoyed and demanding to mask his concern.

The nurse, a Mobian of the red deer race wearing the typical white nurse clothing, had a serious and deadpan expression on her face that implied that nothing could faze her anymore, only for her to look surprised at noticing the second tail hidden behind Miles' first one, the child instinctively putting his tails behind and below his body in a futile effort to hide the fact that he had two of them. Immediately knowing what she was reacting to, Scourge reminded her with his fists clenched, " Don't say a word! Remember what your job is, nurse! Just treat his wounds, and keep your yap shut! " and grumbled under his breath, " He's been through _enough…_ " This discouraged the nurse from making the sarcastic comment, " Well, now I've seen everything. " She didn't have anything against the child, but she knew that Scourge in his bad mood would never pick up on that.

Worried from Scourge intimidating her, the nurse quickly nodded and took out the disinfectant, cotton balls, and gauze from the First Aid Kit out of the cupboard. From the moment he stepped into the room, Miles was full of anxiety, trembling with his pupils shrunken and backing up against the wall, not trusting her to do anything to help him when no one had done anything like that for him before. When the nurse tried to bring disinfectant-soaked cotton balls to his cuts, Miles gasped and put his hands in front of his body flinching, and shouted hysterically with a panicked frightened tone, " No! NO! NO! "

The logical part of his mind knew that his cuts needed disinfecting, but the emotional part completely overwhelmed him with flashbacks as it endlessly reminded him of how much pain he felt every time he disinfected a cut himself. He didn't want to experience that again, especially not at the hands of someone else. At least when his pain was the result of something he personally did to himself, he knew for a fact that it wasn't because he was in danger. Irrationally afraid, Miles sat down with his back against the wall, and quietly begged, " No, no, no! Stay away from me… " to the confused and concerned nurse, with his pupils shrunken and a scared look on his face.

To Miles' surprise and confusion, Scourge sighed, and told the nurse, " Let me do it. He doesn't trust anyone but me. " The nurse could do nothing but silently hand him her medical supplies in response to that, dumbfounded and stunned by what he was willing to do. Whoever that two-tailed child was, he must have been something really special to have given Scourge the Hedgehog a heart; as far as anyone knew, he had never before felt compassion, and yet here he was, being patient and caring and understanding to an unusual-looking child who was clearly far more traumatized than he was willing to admit.

After quickly looking him up and down and noticing his torn gloves and worn out shoes, Scourge took it upon himself to take care of all of Miles' injuries, disinfecting and putting gauze on his cuts one at a time with a serious but concerned expression on his face. Each disinfectant-covered cotton ball put Miles through a stinging pain that pierced throughout his body and tormented him beyond words, and the only reason he didn't instinctively start believing Scourge was hurting him on purpose, was that the entire time he helped him, he was speaking to him in a soft and reassuring tone caressing his head gently, telling him how many cuts were left and that it would all be over soon. Both Miles and the nurse were stunned and dumbfounded at the sight of a criminal like Scourge treating someone's injuries instead of causing them, taking care of a five-year-old child's cuts with gentle care when he didn't technically have to. Miles winced, whimpered, and had his eyes squeezed shut with his fists clenched and grimacing every time one of his cuts was disinfected, trying to deal with the pain without looking weak. It had long since been beaten into him that if he screamed, he would only get himself into more trouble.

Eventually, after two and a half minutes had passed, almost all of Miles' cuts were successfully treated and dressed. All except for two. " Alright, now take off your gloves, I gotta see your hands, " Scourge said unhappily with a serious expression that attempted to mask his concern with irritation. Miles looked away from him sadly, with tears threatening to well up in his eyes as he reluctantly pulled off the black cufflinks that kept his gloves from being pulled off him again by spiteful bullies in the night.

The instant Scourge saw what his slightly torn white gloves were hiding, he gasped. Just looking at his ungloved hands caused Miles to be flooded with waves of memories of all the horrible experiences that ended up being the origins of every single scar, burn, and constriction mark on his body, especially his tails. Before seeing it, Scourge had no problem with keeping up appearances by feigning annoyance to hide his pity, but just one look at the child's scarred hands broke his mask completely, causing him to drop his façade without realizing it, and his serious expression was replaced with one of concern.

After staring for a second or two looking even more stunned and horrified than the nurse behind him, Scourge carefully reached out to Miles' outstretched right hand and held it gently from beneath, and dabbed it with disinfectant-soaked cotton for a few seconds before wrapping a bandage around it. When he was finished, he slowly let go of his hand and repeated the process with his left hand, all the while working in silence as he stared at the child's scarred hands speechless, studying every single injury as he tried not to express his hatred for the ones responsible and scare his new friend in the process.

These were not the hands of a child. They were small, but they felt rough and cracked from years of hard work out of a desperation to survive, and were damaged in a sickening amount of places. And it wasn't just his hands. All of his fur hid the evidence of him surviving more injuries than any kid he had ever known. His skin was almost completely covered in scars, some old and some new, some going in different ways than others, and not only were there scars, but he could've sworn he spotted the remains of burn marks at certain spots, as well as marks resulting from being squeezed too tightly, a daunting indicator of the horrible experiences Miles had suffered at the hands of the island's inhabitants. His entire body was covered in painful-looking scars, but his tails were the most heavily scarred of all, and as he bandaged the cuts on them, he could've sworn he saw a circular scar that was shaped like the healed remains of a bullet wound, a bullet wound in his second tail. " _Those monsters,_ " Scourge thought with tranquil fury, trying to avoid having an angry expression to avoid scaring Miles. " _How could they do that to a child?!_ "

Scourge was well aware of how new it was of him to be reacting like that to injustice, as if he was some kind of hero or something, and he was frustrated with himself for still having enough of a soft side to care, but at the same time, he was proud that he cared, because he was disgusted to even think about the people who treated Miles the way they did for such a superficial reason. Part of him was boiling with rage at the idea that every single inhabitant of that island would get away with it and he wanted to burn that place to the ground, and if he ever got into a position of power where he could do that to the island, he would destroy it at the quickest opportunity. But there was another part of him that was overwhelmed with pity for him, being so horrified and concerned at how Miles was suffering that it completely overshadowed his rage and caused it to be pushed to the back of his mind. He would take revenge on the island later. Right now, he had a child to comfort, and whether it was new for him to do it or not, it still felt right.

Miles was miserable during the entire experience, and when it was finally over, he sighed in relief, and finally opened his eyes, only to be stunned at seeing the sympathy in the young criminal's eyes and be once again struck silent. " How is he, nurse? Is there _anything_ else about his condition I need to know about? " Scourge asked the nurse quietly without taking his eyes off Miles, with nothing but concern in his expression and tone. He was done trying to hide it. The nurse looked him over, examining him without realizing that it made Miles all the more uncomfortable, and said, " He seems dangerously thin. When's the last time you had anything to eat? "

Her question was answered with a silence that filled everyone in the room with dread. If Miles didn't know any better, he'd think that even this random stranger felt sorry for him, but he refused to believe it was the case when it was certainly too good to be true. Scourge told the nurse, " He's just shy, that's all, " and asked him with a serious expression, " Miles? How long's it been? " There was another silence, as Miles looked sadly at the floor with downcast eyes, reluctant to look weakened by admitting how hungry he was. When his stomach finally rumbled and gave it all away, he sighed and mumbled, " Three days ago. " Scourge gasped, and the nurse's eyebrows raised at hearing that, and she told him, " P-Please, stand on that scale over there. We need to know how much you weigh. "

Worried he'd get in trouble with Scourge if he kept not doing what he wanted, Miles reluctantly walked over to the square device across from the door and stood on top of it, feeling unsteady from standing on something that wasn't the floor and uneasy at how vulnerable he felt. He couldn't stop himself from feeling paranoid that having his back turned to her would cause her to yank him by the tails like so many others had done before. The nurse examined the unusually low number shown on the scale and questioned, " How old are you? " Feeling ashamed and defensive of his young age and wishing people took him more seriously in spite of it, Miles answered, " Five, " with an annoyed expression, even though he was fairly sure it wasn't technically true yet. The nurse responded with a worried tone, " He's under the average weight of a child his age! And that's especially concerning, considering that the weight of the _additional_ tail should if anything make him weigh more! "

Scourge snapped at her, " Hey! " set off from Miles irrationally feeling worried and uncomfortable the instant his second tail was finally addressed. No matter what the context was, Miles couldn't help the fact that every time his second tail was mentioned, he automatically prepared himself for a beating. Realizing why they were upset, the nurse quickly continued, " Not that there's anything wrong with that. T-Taking the weight of the second tail into consideration, he's still worryingly underweight, but he hasn't progressed to the point of starvation. He doesn't need to go to the hospital. "

Still in a bad mood, Scourge yelled from anger born of worry, " He's not starving? He hasn't eaten in three _days,_ lady! I-I can even feel his _ribs!_ What'dya call _that?!_ " Trying to be patient with him and hide how intimidated she was, the nurse explained calmly, " Victims of starvation are a _lot_ skinnier than that. Just be careful not to overfeed him to try to compensate too much. His stomach's smaller than normal at this point, and it can't handle too much food at once. Make sure he eats something nutritious, like vegetable soup or a salad, but don't overdo it. Worst case scenario, it could be fatal. "

Hearing that caused Scourge's anger to die down, and he looked worried again, sighing heavily at the depressing news. All he really wanted was to have a friend, to have someone care about him for the first time in his life, but times like this made it hard to ignore just what he had gotten himself into. He had never experienced anything like that before, trying to take on the responsibility of taking care of a child who was treated with such horrifying cruelty that he was showing signs of post-traumatic stress at far too young of an age to have it. That child was paranoid and untrusting of everyone around him, instinctively viewing the world as his enemy, seeing everyone as a threat, and it was getting increasingly clear that the trauma he suffered from would always continue to haunt him, making him suffer from flashbacks the instant the wrong thing set him off. His skin was covered in signs of his abuse, he didn't have even the slightest self-esteem and had to fake it, and all those years of abuse had hardened him to the point where from most people's perspective, his heart turned to stone, and he became the most bitter and vengeful child he had ever met. And he had every reason to be, but Scourge still couldn't help but worry that by having a friend with emotional baggage like that, he would be in for more than he could handle. He wasn't used to trying to be patient and understanding and sensitive to someone with such severe psychological issues, and just for the sake of having a friend. Was he really that lonely?

He would have to be very patient and understanding to him, and he didn't know if his naturally short temper could take it without him yelling at him at least once, and potentially losing his only friend in the process. He worried that he was too reckless and impatient and insensitive to maintain a friendship with such a sensitive and easily startled child without screwing things up.

But in spite of all his worries and doubts, Scourge was still certain he had made the right decision. As difficult as it would be to take on the responsibility of being a friend to a person like that, knowing full well that he'd become his emotional crutch from being the only one who showed him any compassion, he would never change his mind about taking him in. Anything was better than leaving him on that island, and anything was better than being alone. Trying to deal with a situation like that tactfully and gently was going to be more than a little awkward for a proud juvenile delinquent like him, but it was worth it, because he couldn't turn back now. He couldn't let him down. That would make him just as bad as his father.

" How much did you get to eat, Miles? " Scourge asked him with a serious expression as he stepped off the scale. Reluctant to give him the answer, Miles hesitated before explaining, " Unless I got lucky and was able to have an unoccupied house to myself for a couple of days, I-I almost never had three meals a day. I was lucky to collect a couple scraps of food here and there. I vaguely recall trying to scavenge from trash cans when I was really young, but the food from it made me ill. And obviously, no one would allow me to simply purchase food with my, unique genetic feature, so I had to rely on whatever I could find in the woods. Berries, mushrooms, wild animals and fish, the occasional fruit every so often. And even then, there's a lot of poisonous food in the woods and determining what was safe to eat and what was not was a dangerous process of trial and error. And I couldn't stay in the forest all the time because the island suffers from very frequent thunderstorms, so I've narrowly avoided being struck by lightning about 32 times. So I was pretty much forced to go into the village sometimes. Food was always scarce when I was alone. The best I could hope for was that I found a house devoid of people for the moment with plenty of food in the fridge. I don't care that I stole from people, I was doing what I could to survive, and there isn't a single person on that island who hasn't done something horrible to me. They deserve it. All of them do… They took one look at me in the height of all my suffering and treated me like the scum of the earth. That's why I hate people… " He spoke quietly with a depressed tone in his voice that tried to be devoid of emotion in spite of everything he said. By the end, he had nothing but bitterness and resentment in his voice. He hated the people of the island more than anyone else could.

" When was the last time you had a bath? I'm seeing a lot of dirt in your fur. And sand, too, lots of it," Scourge questioned, with an unsettlingly serious expression from hearing everything he had to say. Sitting on the ground from feeling tired, Miles answered, " Um, yesterday. M-Most of the time, I have to cleanse myself in a river. " He added under his breath, " The ocean is just too salty for my scars… " not intending for Scourge to hear it.

As Scourge looked even more concerned about him, Miles continued while feeling uncomfortable, " Occasionally I'd have the fortune of being able to take a shower in an unoccupied home, but I only took that risk if I was absolutely _certain_ that the owners of the home wouldn't return while I was there. At least with a shower, I can run out of there quickly if the owner of the house comes barging into the room with a- um, never mind. " The instant that final sentence ended, Scourge was filled with dread from his imagination filling in the blanks of what weapons he could've possibly been attacked with in his short lifetime. A knife? A frying pan? A gun? Looking awkward from looking so pitiful for so long, Miles said in a hurry to change the subject, " M-My point is, I'm clean… Well, as clean as one _can_ be when they have to wash themselves in a river. I'm not sick if that's what you're asking. I'm fine. "

Scourge sighed sadly, kneeled to his eye level and told him, " Well, when we get home, you're having a bath before you go to bed, just to be sure. I don't wanna take any chances. Don't worry, I won't let anyone barge in on ya. My house has three different bathrooms, you don't have to worry about a thing. I'm not having you get sick on your first day movin' in. The fact that you're hurt is bad enough. "

Looking worried, Miles asked, " Are you _sure_ you won't get in trouble with your family for this? For adopting a kid off the streets that you just met? They don't even _know_ me! It might not even _matter_ if they get to _know_ me! The best I can hope for is they'll glare at me every time they see me! And you can't threaten your parents. I don't wanna get you in trouble, Sonic. I-I don't wanna be a burden on you… " Scourge reassured him patiently, " It'll be fine. They're always so caught up in their work that they don't care what goes on in their home. They'll barely even notice you there. They let me do whatever I want as long as I don't bug 'em too much. And again, my parents are rich. It's no trouble at all… "

After a silence where Miles looked worried and hoped he was right, Scourge stood up from the floor and told him, " Now come on. I'll take ya to the kitchen and get'cha somethin' to eat. And I won't let anyone lay a finger on ya. I promise. If somebody so much as _breathes_ the wrong way around ya, I'll pummel 'em to the ground! " in a tone that was a mixture of intimidating and sincerely affectionate. Under normal circumstances, the sight of someone towering over him standing next to him as he sat on the floor would frighten him, but seeing Scourge's hand outstretched waiting for him to take it reassured him, as no one had ever done that for him before. Miles carefully took his hand despite his trembling and allowed him to pull him to a standing position as a result.

Miles had to reluctantly force himself to let go of Scourge's hand, having been savoring the affection he had always been deprived of. Noticing his reluctance to let go and deciding not to press the issue, Scourge brought him out of the medical ward and started walking down the hallway leading to the ship restaurant, holding his wrist gently to show him affection without looking too soft and ensure that he wouldn't run away. He would've held his hand, but his pride discouraged him from doing so, not wanting to look like even more of a softie.

Miles tried as hard as he could to not instinctively look around him constantly and register everyone walking down the hallway as a threat, and forced himself to focus purely on Scourge walking in front of him, staring at the design of the skull and crossbones with fire engulfing it on the back of his black leather jacket, and thinking about how ironic fate could be; the people who were hateful to him were law-abiding citizens and police – with the police being the ones most passionate about hunting him down - and the one person who treated him with respect was a criminal, a punk, a juvenile delinquent, and not only did he treat him with respect, but he appointed himself as his personal bodyguard.

Scourge brought Miles into the largest " kitchen " he had ever seen in his life, the ship restaurant. Fortunately for him, there wasn't anyone in the restaurant at the time to stare at them the entire time they were there, so for the first time since he was alone with Scourge, Miles began to relax. Scourge walked up to a black-suited man standing behind a counter, put his arm around Miles to hold him close to him in a sideways hug, and said, " I need a steak and a salad for my friend here. Give him the most _healthiest_ salad on the menu, and your _juiciest_ steak! "

The man went from looking serious to surprised at seeing an anxious two-tailed fox beside Scourge, trembling while attempting to hide his bandaged tails behind him, and Scourge growled quietly, " I won't be having _any_ nasty comments about him, capiche? " not realizing that Miles could hear him. " W-What h- I mean, yes sir. I'll inform the waiters of your order, " and going into the kitchen behind him as the two of them sat down at the closest table. Scourge had a suspicion that the man was about to express concern for his injuries, only to shake it off just like Miles did, not believing that he could be that kind.

Sitting at a table in a restaurant for the first time in his life, Miles waited for a few seconds before asking in confusion, " So, we have to wait for our meal? " Scourge reassured him, " _Your_ meal. Don't worry 'bout me, I just ate. And we won't have to wait for long. " Miles nodded, still stunned at the idea that someone was giving him not only a nutritious salad, but a steak as well, and with absolutely no ill intentions. The last time someone gave him food, he discovered that it was poisoned, and he was sick for a week. Not that he would tell Scourge this. He was already worried enough, and while Miles appreciated the fact that someone was finally fretting over his well-being, he felt like a terrible friend for doing nothing but depressing and worrying the one person who cared about him, and he didn't want to look weak and vulnerable by fully revealing to him just how terrible his life used to be. _Used_ to be… That was a hard concept for him to accept.

" So, Tails? " The sudden friendly sentence from Scourge snapped Miles out of his thoughts and startled him from how sudden it was, and he jumped before finally looking at Scourge's confused reaction and calming himself down. " Y-Yes? " he answered, trying to sound calm and dignified to avoid looking easily startled. He still couldn't get used to being called Tails as an affectionate nickname, but as long as Scourge only said it when he was speaking to him in a friendly manner, he supposed he could change his mind.

" Are ya thirsty? " he asked, his smile becoming forced from sympathy. There was a brief silence, until Miles admitted with downcast eyes, " I haven't had any water for two days. The best I can hope for is I find an unoccupied house to break into and take water from its fridge, but that's a rare occurrence. I wasn't permitted to take a drink from the park fountain, for obvious reasons. Usually I'm lucky if I find a strawberry or apple or the like and that's enough to keep me hydrated. Sometimes I'll boil the water from a river using matches, firewood and a jar I took, because boiling is the only way I can clean it. But hot water takes terrible, and I never know how long I have to boil it before it's drinkable and some of it leaves the jar when it boils away and I have to gather more, it… I'm sorry, I talk too much. My point is, water's a lot harder to come across than food. I-It's not a big deal, really, I managed. It's just that I was far more likely to get dehydrated than starve. "

Scourge stared at him with a concerned expression on his face. No matter what look someone had on their face when staring at him, Miles still felt uneasy because of it, and he quickly avoided his gaze with a nervous expression. " Damn it… " Scourge grumbled, looking at the table he was sitting at and then at the counter where the man was no longer standing. Miles looked at him again, nervous and afraid at seeing Scourge get angry again. " I should've ordered water for ya, too. Damn it! " He pounded the table with his fist, making Miles jump again, knowing but not caring that Scourge was only frustrated with himself, because he knew from experience that if someone was angry at himself, he was still just as likely to take it out on him. Scourge asked him in exasperation, " Why didn't you tell me you were thirsty _before_ we came in? "

There was a dead silence, and Scourge quickly returned to looking concerned as he realized that Miles was trembling in fear of him, intimidated by his temper. He sighed, thankful that he at least hadn't raised his voice at him, and said calmly, " Never mind… " not able to bring himself to apologize. He understood that if Miles was so reluctant to talk about his past that he didn't want to take off his gloves or even tell him he was starving, it only made sense that he wouldn't tell him he was thirsty unprompted, either. " I should've asked you earlier… Some friend I am, " Scourge continued with downcast eyes, making it more clear to Miles that he wasn't angry with him.

" Don't say that about yourself, " Miles said sadly, stunned that he would actually call himself a bad friend after everything he did for him. " You're a _wonderful_ friend. Just the sheer fact that you're allowing me to move in with you without even a day of knowing me proves my point. I-I _deeply_ appreciate everything you've done for me, e-even if I'm still not completely letting down my guard. You can _never_ be too careful. But that's not your fault. You're a _great_ friend. It's _my_ fault I'm so… difficult… " Miles told him, fully aware of how unusual it was for him to be comforting someone. The last time he tried to comfort someone to make him more liked on his island, he received a punch in the face for his efforts, being called condescending and manipulating, as people were offended by the very idea of being helped by a so-called freak. He couldn't understand why Scourge would want to have a friend who would come with such baggage, and felt terrible about how he was doing nothing but depressing him with his presence. Scourge wasn't the bad friend, he was. He was worse than useless.

" You're not difficult, Miles. It's not your fault. I-It's mine 'cause I've never had a friend before. I've never comforted anyone like that. It's not something that the world's greatest thief would wanna be caught doin', you know? I'm not used to looking like a softie, but you're the one person I show my soft side to. You've earned that privilege. You deserve it more than anyone, even if it is from me, " Scourge replied, looking awkward and sincere at the same time. Miles felt a small smile on his face, and quickly stopped from being so shocked at realizing it was there. He smiled. He actually smiled! He couldn't remember ever smiling before. And Scourge noticed, and smiled back, but only for a brief moment before looking serious and concerned again. He wasn't exactly doing a good job not reminding him of his past. Miles wanted to look forward to a better future, but Scourge had to ask him a bunch of questions about his past first.

" So what'd you do in the winter? " Scourge questioned. He was going to ask him where he got his red and white shoes and torn white gloves from, but it was easy to figure out by that point that he had to steal them, too. He didn't know how long Miles had been surviving on his own. It must have been long enough that he had forgotten his parents, but he couldn't have been younger than two, because he couldn't imagine a toddler surviving in the woods for long, let alone a toddler that everyone on the island wanted dead, even if that toddler _was_ a genius.

He remembered when he was treating Miles' injuries again, and remembered how torn his gloves were. How were they keeping him warm? All they really did was keep his actual hands from getting dirt in them, and considering the amount of fresh and old scars he had, getting dirty was something he really didn't need, and Scourge tried not to cringe at the thought that simply washing his hands with soap and water could be painful from the soap getting into the scars and cuts on his skin. Miles' shoes were heavily worn as well, and about as dirty as you'd expect the shoes of a kid living in the woods to be.

Miles explained calmly with a depressed tone for most of it, " Well, if I was really lucky, there was an unoccupied house for me to hide in as a squatter, and I'd just sit back on the couch in its living room sipping tea and watching the Discovery channel, but that was the best case scenario. I lived on the island for my entire life, observing the villagers from behind the bushes from afar, so I was able to familiarize myself with their schedules, but only to a certain extent; I still couldn't hear all of their conversations, or see their calendars, so I still didn't quite know when they'd leave or when they'd come back. The best I could hope for was that someone would leave their home for winter vacation and I'd have a warm place to stay for a while, and even then, I wouldn't know when they'd come back. At least I'd have their TV to entertain me, but I had to keep all the doors and windows locked, you know, for _obvious_ reasons. But most of the time, I wasn't so lucky. I could get some winter clothes for myself and hide out in some caves, there's plenty of caves on Coconut Island, and I wouldn't have to deal with the wind if I was in the cave deep enough. But as for food? And water?... Well, breaking into houses was the only way I could get them reliably, which meant spending every single _day_ running for my _life..._ Heh, it's no wonder I discovered how fast I could run after _all_ the times I had to do it! Heh heh heh. Really, um, saved my skin there! _Sort of… "_

Seeing Miles try to force himself to speak in a lighthearted way about such terrifying experiences was heartbreaking and uncomfortable at the same time, and at the final sentence, Miles spoke far quietly than normal, as if he didn't want Scourge to hear his clarification on how his skin, literally speaking, was not entirely saved, being full of far more scars than it had any right to be. Scourge sighed sadly, which made Miles depressed that he was doing nothing but upsetting the only friend he ever had, and Scourge tried to return to his regular friendly and jovial demeanor as he said,

" Well, at least you were able to make it. You're a lot smarter than most of the kids I've known. It's no surprise you were able to survive on your own. But you, my friend, need new clothes! As soon as we both get home, I'll need to know your glove and shoe size so I can get'cha somethin' else to wear. What you're wearin' right now is pretty worn, so I'm not sure it's keepin' you warm good enough. "

Looking nervous at the thought of Scourge bringing him into a shoe store and him running away from people throwing shoes at him, Miles asked nervously, " How are you going to get it? " Scourge, unaware of why he was worried, put his arms behind his head in a relaxed pose while he explained, " I know a guy. I got a lot of connections in the city from being the intimidatin' presence I am, and there's a lot I can accomplish even _without_ it from being the fastest thing alive. I'll get you some clothes _no problemo!_ You won't even have to come _with_ me. "

Looking nervous and unhappy, Miles asked him, " So do you just spend _all day_ in the city, stealing and picking fights all by yourself? Are you going to keep doing that while I stay home all _alone?_ " hoping he wouldn't sound like a clingy and needy friend by saying that. There was a brief silence before Scourge said with a smile, " Don't worry, Tails, you can come along! " Miles had to hold back a gasp. There must have been so many more people to gang up on him in a city. With a panicked look on his face, he asked, " Are you sure?! "

Trying to reassure him, Scourge told him, " You've got super speed, remember? That and you can fly. So not only will ya make a great thief, but if anyone tries to hurt ya, you can easily get away from 'em! " Looking depressed again, Miles admitted with downcast eyes, " That didn't always keep them from hurting me. Usually it did, but every so often they'd sneak up on me, or attack me while I was sleeping. A-At one point I resorted to trying to sleep on top of a tree branch keeping myself on it all night with Velcro. It worked, but I never stopped feeling like it was going to break off from my weight at any moment, and the Velcro was a little, well, _difficult_ to pull away from my chest. A-Anyways, my point is, what if someone attacks me from behind or from the side when I'm distracted? What if someone throws something at me and I get hurt before I can react? You can't protect me from _everything!_ I don't want to keep you from fully enjoying yourself and doing everything you usually do because you're too focused on protecting me. I want to help you. I want to engage in enjoyable activities with you and be useful to you. I want to be a good friend! Can I really do all of that without getting hurt? "

Wanting him to calm down, Scourge reassured him, " Of _course_ you can! It's just like I said. Take full advantage of your super speed and the fact that you can fly! The two of us running through the city streets will be unstoppable! And if anyone so much as looks at you the wrong way, I'll pummel 'em into the ground! You wanna get back at the people who don't treat ya right? Well, now that you're allied with such a feared criminal, you can do whatever you want! You can finally carry out your revenge and give your bullies what they deserve! Just watch how I fight, and try to imitate that. With enough time, you could be almost as great of a fighter as I am! Although I'm sure you can handle yourself already, but now that you're with me, you'll get even stronger than you ever were before! And pretty soon, nobody will be gutsy enough to so much as look at you the wrong way again! You're living the high life now! Just look at you, you're sittin' in a fancy restaurant waiting for a delicious steak and some, uh, salad, and sittin' right across from you is the richest and most powerful hedgehog in the world! You're doing great now! You've got the rich life!"

When he heard confirmation that he was expected to go into a city full of people with him, Miles was uneasy, but he found himself being surprisingly uplifted by his motivational and passionate speech. Before he knew it, he had a great big smile on his face, overjoyed at realizing just how much better his life had become. Finally, at the end of Scourge's speech, Miles found himself cheering eagerly, " Yeah! " Happy that Miles was cheered up and finding it cute that he was smiling again, Scourge continued with a genuine smile, " You're livin' like a king! " Miles cheered, " Yeah! " and Scourge exclaimed happily and triumphantly, " Hail to the king, baby! " for the very first time. Miles cheered, " Yeah! " and giggled at the funny image of himself as a king after making a fist pump, so caught up in the moment that he didn't realize how rare it was for him to be overwhelmed with happiness for once, and that the waiter was coming up to the table.

Scourge was anticipating Miles getting startled again at realizing that an unfamiliar stranger had come up to him without him noticing, but to his surprise and relief, Miles was too busy giggling to notice or care. In a genuine good mood again for the first time since he met him, Scourge said to the waiter with a grin, " And bring over a bottle of water, will ya? Cold, straight out of the fridge, " and chuckled as the waiter walked away looking confused at the happy scene in front of him. He had never seen Scourge enjoying himself with a kid before, or with _any_ friend before, let alone a friend with an extra tail.

Miles finally stopped giggling at last, but kept his good mood, having finally let it sink in that there was genuine hope that his life was going to get better, that he could finally have revenge on the people who mistreated him without worrying that they would kill him in his sleep, because he finally had a home, and he finally had someone to rely on. Scourge said playfully, " Come on, champ, eat up, " and Miles gladly started eating, alternating with each bite between the high-quality juicy steak and the various vegetables making up the salad. The salad had some salad dressing and tomatoes in it and a larger variety of vegetables in one dish than either of them had ever seen. Scourge looked at Miles with a cocked eyebrow and amused smile at seeing him enjoying the salad even more than the steak, when he personally was more of a meat lover and saw vegetables as something he had to suffer through to avoid getting punished by his parents. Or something he was made to eat as a punishment by his parents. He let his smile fade for a brief moment as he remembered that while most of the time, his parents were neglectful and apathetic enough to let him do whatever he wanted, when they were actually in the room with him and not busy or in a hurry to leave, they were incredibly strict and intimidating.

At least Miles never had to deal with parents like that. But what were his parents like at all? They probably abandoned him because of his second tail, but that wouldn't explain why he was able to survive until he was at least three. He was briefly distracted from his train of thought when the waiter brought the water to the table, and he took it from him and handed it to Miles, instructing him, " Drink slowly, alright? " being worried that drinking too much water at once when he was dehydrated would be more than his body could handle. Miles nodded, and worried him with his serious expression, only to quickly return to smiling from the taste of his food after taking a slow, careful drink from the bottle of water.

Scourge wondered if Miles used to live in an orphanage rather than simply being abandoned in the woods as a newborn. He wondered if Miles escaped from it because he was bullied too much, or because it burned down. He could've sworn he saw a news report of the orphanage on Coconut Island burning down from a lightning strike at some point. But according to Miles, he had been living in the woods on his own for as long as he could remember, so if he indeed did used to live in an orphanage, it would've been when he was too young to form permanent long-term memories, and he wouldn't remember a thing about it. How did he manage to survive his orphanage burning down at such a young age? Did he know he had super speed even back then?

But he didn't voice any of those concerns, because if he reminded Miles about his past, he would only ruin his good mood, and those were rare enough already. He wanted Miles to focus on the present and how much better it was, and if that meant letting Miles keep most of the memories of his past to himself rather than relive them by talking about it, it was worth it. There was so much he didn't know about Miles' past, but he felt like he knew enough. Scourge kept silent as Miles focused entirely on eating and enjoying the taste of what he ate, having run out of things to say to him from telling him everything he wanted to at the moment and getting all the answers from him that he wanted, and not wanting Miles to take even longer finishing his lunch because he was obligated to take a break from eating to speak to him.

Several minutes later, Miles was finally finished his steak and salad, and said, " Mmm! Thanks, Sonic! " with a cheerful smile. Scourge gave him a thumbs-up and said, " No problem, Tails! " while him and Miles stood up from the table. His smile became forced when he realized that Miles' good mood would now end from being expected to walk through a hallway full of people to reach Scourge's room in the ship. " Now we just need to go to the room reserved for me and wait 'till the ship gets home. It won't be long, just another half hour, " he said with a cheerful tone, walking out of the restaurant while holding Miles' wrist and trying to ignore how filled with anxiety he was. He cringed a little at feeling Miles shaking under his hand, and offered him with a friendly smile, " Hey, how's about I carry you there while running through the hall at sonic speed?! That way, " and whispered to the anxious child, " you won't have to worry 'bout people seeing ya. "

Miles sighed in relief, and wished that option would be available to him more often as Scourge lifted him into his arms, supporting him by the back and the back of his knees and allowing Miles to hold onto him by the shoulders, and the wind started rushing past him as Scourge started running at the speed of sound to their destination, turning as fast as he ran with his heightened reaction times to avoid running into the walls. Miles saw Scourge rushing past people, but none of them seemed to react quickly enough to notice his second tail, only seeing him as a yellow blur within a blue one. Miles giggled, feeling happy again at realizing just how much his circumstances had changed, and sighed in relief at Scourge finally bringing him into his reserved room, which had a door leading directly to the deck where they'd leave the ship.

Scourge said with a smile, " My bed is yours, kiddo! Get some rest. In fact, I think I'll take a bit of a nap too, " and laid down beside him with his arms behind his head in relaxation, after locking the door to his room out of courtesy for Miles. The kid was confused and surprised at someone lying down beside him, but all he could focus on was how soft the bed was. And that was just the bed of Scourge's ship. He couldn't imagine how soft and warm the bed of his guest room would be. Imitating Scourge's relaxed pose unintentionally, Miles put his arms behind his head and sighed happily, thinking, " _Sonic was right. I'm livin' like a king. It's about time the world started making it up to me._ "

After a half an hour where the two of them relaxed, Miles was startled by hearing a woman announce over the intercom, " The ship has now reached its destination. I repeat, the ship has now reached its destination, " and jumped out of bed with a yelp at hearing a stranger's voice in his room. Looking around in a panic, he soon realized that no one was in the room but Scourge, who quickly stood up from the bed and smiled at him in a way that was slightly forced from his concern over him. " Look alive, Tails! We're almost at your new home! And I'm gonna get ya there faster than you can blink! " he boasted cheerfully.

He lifted Miles into his arms again before running at the speed of sound out of the room, off the ship's deck, and through the streets of a city full of skyscrapers, running along the sidewalks and occasionally crossing the street at a speed that made him look like a blue, black, and yellow blur, yellow because Miles was in his arms. But Miles didn't find himself in a good mood this time. All he could think about was that people other than Scourge were living in his house, and he was dreading having to meet them.

Finally, after several minutes of the wind rushing by him as the city flew past him, Miles was put down in front of the gate of an impressive-looking mansion that belonged to Scourge's parents. Scourge pressed the button on a black device near the gate and said, " Sonic here, " and the gate was opened by the security system as a result. " Come on, Tails! " he said cheerfully, and ran up to his front door at the speed of sound, causing Miles to quickly run after him to catch up with him as he held open the front door for him jokingly with a grin. " Let's go to the kitchen and get'cha some ice cream, " Scourge said happily, which only made Miles feel a little better as he hoped that no one would see him as a result.

He was wrong. Scourge's parents were in the kitchen when he walked in, or what Miles assumed was his parents; two blue hedgehogs, the female one with short hair wearing a Bluetooth headset phone and a black business suit and the male one wearing a fancy suit and tie getting some potato chips for himself in a bowl. To Miles' surprise, the two adults only looked at him in surprise and confusion for a second before immediately focusing again on what they were doing, having never even stopped. Scourge's mother barely paid him any attention, being too focused on talking on her Bluetooth phone to her business associates. Scourge's father did in fact notice him and Miles, but didn't seem to outright hate him. He asked with a bored look and a raised eyebrow, " Who's this? " Miles was struck speechless. If he didn't know any better, he'd assume that Scourge's father was more confused about why he was there than the fact that he had two tails. Miles looked over at Scourge's mother in stunned confusion as she just walked out of the kitchen not paying any attention to him or his extra limb, and then looked at Scourge's father again, feeling more dumbfounded than scared.

Scourge, satisfied at getting his father to actually talk to him for once, told him with a smile while getting some ice cream out of the fridge, " He's my friend, Miles! I call 'em Tails. He's gonna be living with us from now on! " and smirked at the end of it, outright hoping that he'd get his father annoyed with him. As Scourge used the ice cream scoop to get the chocolate ice cream in a bowl for Miles to enjoy, his father Anti-Jules looked at him skeptically and said, " Well, I hope you're prepared to take on the responsibility of giving us another mouth to feed. If you want him to live with us, I'm expecting _you_ to cover the extra costs. " Scourge looked worried at hearing that.

So surprised at his lack of antagonism for him that he couldn't hide it anymore, Miles asked him impulsively, " S-So you're really alright with me living here? You don't _hate_ me? " looking sad at the final sentence. The man gave him a strange look, but to his surprise, it wasn't because of his second tail. It was because of what he said. " No, I don't hate you. Just don't cause trouble in the house, " he told him with a serious expression masking his concern, and left the room to focus on his work some more, wondering if the kid had a rough past.

Miles stared at Anti-Jules as he left the kitchen, still dumbfounded and confused, and Scourge snapped him out of it by saying happily, " Here you go, Tails! Dessert! " and handing him a bowl of chocolate ice cream with a spoon. Miles stared at the ice cream in confusion before carefully sitting at the kitchen table, and after instinctively hesitating from remembering what happened the last time someone gave him food, he finally started to eat the three scoops of ice cream in front of him. He still couldn't get used to the idea that things were really going that well for him, or going well at all. Usually, good things only happened to him to bring his hopes up before crushing him with disappointment.

Scourge, wanting to distract him from his inner turmoil and get him in a good mood again, pulled out of the cupboards some chocolate syrup and said, " How 'bout some chocolate syrup to make it taste even better? I know you want some! " handing the bottle of syrup to him with a grin. Miles was still confused, but after putting it on his ice cream and tasting it at last, a small smile finally crept onto his face. He never had to deal with the horrors of his past again. With a steady food supply, a warm and safe home, a friend he could rely on, and soon some new clothes to keep him warm and covered, he finally didn't have to worry about whether he'd live to the next day. He was free.

But what about Scourge? How was he going to get the money to support him at such a young age? Miles' smile quickly left and he said in a depressed tone, " I'm sorry you have to cover the costs for me living here. I didn't mean to be a burden. " Scourge, who was standing on the other side of the table about to sit down and eat some ice cream of his own, turned away from him unhappily at hearing that.

There was a silence, and Miles stared at Scourge from behind nervously, hoping he wouldn't turn around and lash out at him from the stress. " I'll get the money for you. You don't have to worry about a thing. I won't be a burden, " Miles told him, trying to stay calm.

To his relief, Scourge turned around without looking angry with him, and said to him with a smile, " Thanks, Tails. " He stopped smiling and continued, " But you don't have to do that right away. You're still hurt, and after everything you've been through, you've earned a break. You take some time to rest until you're back in fighting condition. You deserve to spend a few days not in danger for once. Take the guest room, kick back and relax, maybe I'll get'cha some books! And I'll show you around the mansion so you can find our piano and violin, and maybe I'll find somebody to teach ya! And when you're all healed up, we'll go out nabbing some loot together, just the two of us. " Miles smiled. He wasn't entirely comfortable with going out stealing things that weren't necessary for him to keep living, especially when the people he'd be stealing from hadn't mistreated him yet. But he didn't want to risk losing his only friend by looking self-righteous in front of him, so he said with a sweet smile, " I look forward to it! Thank you, Sonic! Thank you, for everything you've done for me. "

The Chaos Emerald that Miles was holding in the present started showing him a few more memories after that, memories that were closely connected to what he had seen before. It showed him Scourge giving him a full tour of his house, very briefly showed him happily trying out having a bath in the house for the first time using the bathroom he believed was least likely to be in demand, and showed him how the servants of the home gave him a very brief confused and surprised look before immediately going right back to doing their jobs, instead of making a snide comment at best or attacking him with a knife at worst, and he was dumbfounded and speechless at their apathetic reaction.

Shortly afterwards, Miles was shown how he felt when he first stepped into the guest room of Scourge's house and laid down on the bed, sighing happily at how soft its mattress and pillow were. Scourge said to him cheerfully with a confident smirk at a certain point, " Here's your bed, Tails! And enjoy! My home is your home! The lights in this room are a clapper, so you can clap to turn 'em on or off without even gettin' outta bed! There's the remote control for an _awesome_ TV, and you can use it to watch whatever ya want. Well, except paperview, 'cause that costs extra. Obviously you can't do _whatever_ you want here. There's gonna hafta be some ground rules, 'though I'm sure you'll follow 'em, and I'm in charge of enforcing 'em since I'm clearly the older one here. But as long as ya follow the rules, ya won't have to worry about a thing. "

Looking worried, Miles asked him, " What's your punishment if I break a rule? " getting the irrational fear that Scourge would hurt him, just like everyone else. There was a silence, and Scourge awkwardly answered, " Well, uh, depends. If my parents find out, I guess there's a risk that they'll yell at ya for it, though they won't kick ya out as long as you don't cause 'em too much trouble, but being yelled at still sucks. If they _don't_ find out, well, uh, I guess I'll tell ya to do chores, help out in the house. Nothing like cleaning the _toilet_ or whatever, just something that's not too sucky for a kid like you. But don't worry about that, Miles. Just stay here, rest up, and watch some TV. I'll get ya some smart people books from the book store for you to read, and you'll be learnin' how to play those instruments you liked in no time! A-As soon as your hands have healed, of course. "

Miles asked him unhappily, " Am I going to spend all day tomorrow alone? I-It's not a big deal or anything, it's not like I care, but… " Scourge sighed unhappily, and then smiled and sat down right beside him, and surprised him by putting his arm around him and bringing him close in a sideways hug, causing him to gasp and jump before looking confused, still not used to that affectionate gesture. Deciding not to draw attention to how easily startled Miles was from mere physical contact, he said cheerfully,

" Tell ya what. How 'bout I take a little break from terrorizing the streets and spend some time with _you_ while you're stuck at home? We'll watch TV and some movies together! I've got plenty I wanna watch! " Miles finally smiled again, and said, " You'd really do that for me? Thanks, Sonic! You're the best person I ever met… " Scourge had a look of surprise and amusement on his face from receiving a compliment like that. Usually, he was called the worst. But being called the best from his best friend felt even better. He was proud of what he did for Miles.

" That's what I like to hear! " he said happily, and stood up from the bed, walking out of the room while saying, " Get some rest, Tails. And in the morning, I'll make sure we have the most delicious feast of a breakfast yet! " and winked with a thumbs-up and with a sly smile at knowing he was going to intimidate the chef into doing his best work in the morning. Miles gave a thumbs-up right back with a satisfied smirk in return, and Scourge locked the door to his room on his request as he closed it behind him. With that, Miles sighed happily, turned off the lights by clapping his hands together, and covered himself over with the soft and warm blankets of his new bed. He knew it was strange and suspect that his new best friend was a criminal who intimidated people to get his own way, but he didn't care, because that criminal had saved his life, and for the first time in his life, he wasn't struggling for it. He closed his eyes and relaxed, going to sleep at 6:00 at night because he finally could.

The Chaos Emerald showed him quick clips of memories that happened shortly afterwards. It showed him how after going to bed that night, he still had a horrible nightmare about being bullied after going to sleep, waking up early in the morning crying about how much people discriminated against him overwhelmed by bitterness and misery, and after realizing where he was and remembering what had happened the previous day, he started wishing that Scourge was there with him to turn to for comfort. He'd be happy if he was at least sleeping beside him like he was on the ship, so that he would be able to comfort himself in his misery by being close to someone he knew would be okay with it, hugging him and reminding himself that he's loved. He longed for the first person to ever show him affection to regularly spend the night holding him in his arms, comforting him and keeping him feeling safe and loved long into the night. But he couldn't ask a proud criminal like Scourge to do that. He was awkward enough about looking like a softie as it was! Miles couldn't stand the feeling of loneliness and abandonment that resulted from waking up all alone and being expected to stay alone when he was at his most miserable, not being allowed to turn to anyone for comfort because of how early in the morning it was, but he was afraid, petrified that if he asked Scourge to do that for him, go just a little bit further in compensating for the lack of affection he'd received for most of his life, he might lose his respect from appearing too needy and weak.

Shortly after that, Miles was shown by the emerald how much he enjoyed the breakfast of bacon, a cheese and mushroom omelette, and toast that Scourge was sure to get made to welcome him to the family. No one had ever cooked him breakfast before. He had cooked breakfast for himself during the times when he was hiding in unoccupied homes, but it felt so much better having someone else cook for him, like he was being provided for instead of having to take care of himself.

Shortly after that, the Chaos Emerald showed him Scourge using a stolen roll-up tape measure to measure his feet and gloves to get his glove, torso and shoe size, and cut to Scourge going into his room hours later and giving him some brand new gloves, a black leather jacket without a design on it, sunglasses with dark blue lenses and gray frames, and black boots, saying, " Got'cha new clothes! What did I tell ya?! Here you go, buddy! " with a great big smile on his face. His new gloves were white and were small enough that they failed to cover his wrists. Why? Wouldn't it be safer to have more of his skin covered and thus protected?

There was a fourth object that Scourge had carried into his room and set down next to his bed, and it was a box covered in colored paper with a bow on the top. He handed it to Miles with a grin and said, " Happy birthday, Tails! Open it up. It was a _bitch_ to _wrap,_ but for you, it's worth it! " and Miles proceeded to open the giftwrap paper to find a white box, which he proceeded to open by the lid at the top, looking stunned that Scourge had given him a birthday gift. He was expecting him to get him new clothing, but he didn't have to get him an extra gift! Let alone go through the trouble of figuring out how to wrap giftwrap paper around a box, when he could've just given him a regular box with a gift in it and called it a day, or not give him any gift in a box at all. He was really dedicated to being a good friend to him. It may have been because he knew how inexperienced he was with that kind of thing and was overcompensating to make sure he wouldn't lose his only friend from a lack of social skills. Or maybe he just really liked him. At the moment, Miles was too focused on what was in the box to ponder about anything else.

The box contained black wristbands, which he put on his wrist with a smile, and looked over at Scourge, who was smiling at him eagerly. " Good, I got the right size. Now flip that small switch on the side of the wristband! " Confused, Miles followed his instruction, and was stunned to see small metal spikes come out of the wristband, revealing that he had given him a spiked bracelet as a gift. " Wow! This is the coolest gift EVER! " Miles responded, so happy that he forgot to try to speak in a sophisticated manner. He eagerly flipped the switch on the other bracelet to activate its spikes right afterwards. " Aw, you really like it? " Scourge said with a confident smirk, proud that he was able to properly guess what kind of gift he would like after only a day of knowing him. He had never gotten anyone a gift before, let alone someone he just met, so he was worried he would screw it up from lack of experience.

" It's perfect! How positively delightful! " Miles complimented in a more sophisticated manner, feeling more at ease from the idea that he would be wearing something that would intimidate the people of the city into thinking that he shouldn't be messed with, and that he meant business. " Oh, thank you, Sonic! Thank you! " he said happily, and turned off the spikes before clarifying, " Of course, I'll have to be careful with these to avoid poking myself, but I won't leave the house without 'em! Thanks, Sonic. I've never gotten a birthday present before, let alone more than one… "

There was a silence as he looked sad, and he admitted, " Well, actually I'm not even sure if I got one right now. I have no way of knowing when my birthday is, to be honest. I barely remember my experience in the orphanage I used to live in before it burned down from being struck by lightning. All I know of it is that I was told why I was there, and my full name, just barely. I have no vivid recollection of anything about the orphanage. But knowing how my life has been, perhaps that's for the best. " He sighed, slightly frustrated with himself for making himself sad again. He could be having the happiest experience of his life and all it would take is for him to be reminded of his past and he'd stop being able to appreciate it.

Trying to make him feel better, Scourge sat down beside him and put his arm around him in a sideways hug, getting his attention immediately, and reassured him, " Well, you chose a _great_ date, kiddo! Your birthday's right in the middle of the summer, and that's the best time for a birthday! Doesn't matter if it's not your actual birthday, 'cause it's the thought that counts! It's all about celebrating the fact that you were born, with the person who cares about you the most. The exact date doesn't matter as long as it's celebrated. " Miles smiled. He never had anyone to celebrate his birthday with, and now that was finally going to change.

" And tell ya what. For dessert, I'll make sure the chef bakes you the tastiest cake you've ever eaten! How does that sound? " Scourge said cheerfully, letting go of him and getting off the bed. Stunned, Miles replied almost dazed from content, " Cake? You mean, a _birthday_ cake?! That sounds _wonderful!_ "

After showing Miles the memory of him enjoying his chocolate cheesecake, and then the memory of him trying out the violin for himself after his hands had fully healed and discovering his natural talent, the last thing the Chaos Emerald showed Miles, was Scourge teaching him how to spindash and Spin Jump when he had finally recovered from his injuries. While he would never stop being intimidated by strangers and being on edge from being in large crowds, Miles was able to get used to running through the city with Scourge, and with him stealing and winning fights with criminals all over the city, he quickly gained a reputation as not only a two-tailed fox, but as Scourge the Hedgehog's most loyal and threatening associate, out for revenge against a world that persecuted him for his second tail. Civilians still looked at him in confusion and surprise at having a second tail, but as long as he was with Scourge, they were too intimidated to harass him. He and Scourge were able to do whatever they wanted, enjoying themselves as they ran through the city together. There were so many fun activities that Scourge allowed Miles to experience for the first time, like snowboarding down a snowy hill that Scourge made sure was reserved just for them, or enjoying themselves at a playground that Scourge scared away everyone there from so that Miles could have it all to himself. " Happy five month anniversary, Miles. Best friends forever, pal! " he had said to him, and Miles had participated in a hi-five for the first time. He would never stop being haunted by his past, but his present was finally satisfying. It was all thanks to him.

At last, the memory ended, bringing him back to reality after a total of four minutes had passed. Miles took his hand away from the emerald, and sighed sadly. He was still conflicted, not sure if he wanted to get all his memories back with a past like he had or try to get himself another emerald to find out anything more. There was still a major part of his past missing. He still didn't know what exactly caused him to go from seeing Scourge as his best friend to resenting him bitterly and betraying him, when the Scourge he remembered so recently would never do anything to make him turn against him like that on purpose. He felt like if he had turned against him, it must have been for a very good reason. Had Scourge let him down? He thought back to the memories that were shown to him by the emerald, and he remembered how upset he was at the prospect that Scourge would be spending all his time in the city while leaving his supposed best friend alone. Had Scourge done that to him? Was it because he finally found a gang to join and didn't think his little brother figure needed his constant company anymore? Did he make him feel abandoned?

He didn't know. A part of him felt like he had found out everything he wanted to know, but he still couldn't help being curious. He wasn't sure how he could possibly find other Chaos Emeralds when he didn't have a means of locating them, possessing no radar to himself, and since he wasn't allowed to be unsupervised during the day and was lucky he managed to sneak out of Fiona's room to use the emerald, he didn't know if he could get away with searching for the emeralds alone. He didn't even know where to start looking. Sonic and his friends clearly had a means of getting emeralds; either that, or they found an emerald by sheer accident and parted with it because they were just that compassionate. Miles sighed, losing hope that he would ever get all his memories back. But at the same time, he didn't want to remember all of his depressing and stressful past and he certainly didn't need to.

* * *

Author's Notes: I think the topic of Miles' past is something that really needs to be treaded on, both in fanfiction, and in the comics. I don't think the Archie Comics ever elaborated at any point on what Anti-Tails' life was like before he met Scourge, and he would've been a more sympathetic and interesting character if there was a canon excuse for why he was as evil as he was, rather than him just being evil for the sake of having an evil counterpart. It makes perfect sense to me that at least one dimensional counterpart of Tails would turn out evil, since being bullied for having two tails is a strong part of Tails' backstory after all and we all know how bitter being bullied can turn someone. That's the fascinating thing about Miles as a character, is that if circumstances were just a little bit different, Tails would've ended up just like him.


	7. Chapter 7

Hours later, Miles walked up to Scourge as he was on the couch waiting for the commercials on TV to be over, and there was a silence as he awkwardly tried to get the courage to say what he wanted to say, trying to be tactful about it to avoid making it too obvious where he was going with it. Finally, he timidly asked him, " Scourge? " Scourge looked confused and said, " Yeah? " surprised at his tone of voice. " Just out of curiosity, because there's nothing else to do, I want to ask you something. If someone you really cared about lost all of their memories, l-like Fiona, f-for example! Would you tell them the complete truth about their past, or would you lie to them and, take advantage of them for it? "

There was a silence as Scourge's eyes darted around the room with his hands on his chin. Miles looked at him nervously; it was easy to tell that he was deeply considering it, so the fact that he didn't say no immediately worried him, and made him hope desperately that Scourge wouldn't then figure out the truth about him because he asked that question in the first place. But to his relief, after a while Scourge's face fell and he looked melancholic as he reluctantly said, " No… "

Looking him in the eyes again, he continued, " It sounds like the smartest idea, but… I would end up regretting it later. I-It's mostly 'cause, you know, someone I know having amnesia would already be a permanent change and one change like that is bad enough, but if I have them thinking something wrong about their past, then there'll be TWO things that are changed about them forever, and then I won't be able to take that lie back without them yelling at me about it. It sounds like something I'd do, but, well... I guess I just don't have the heart to do it, when it gets right down to it. "

Scourge muttered in annoyance, " Some criminal I turned out to be, " embarrassed and frustrated with having a soft side, and his looking away from Miles caused him not to see the hopeful smile on his face. Seeing that he had a soft side and potentially wouldn't take advantage of him gave him hope. He knew that Scourge knew more about his past than anyone else, and while he'd prefer to actually remember his memories again and stop living in a clueless fog of ignorance about his own life, he supposed at least having someone to tell him a lot about his past would be a good start. Finally getting the courage to do it, Miles took a deep breath before admitting to him,

" Scourge? I-I've got something to tell you. R-Remember when that robot attacked me and I suffered serious head trauma, and then Fiona told you that I could have memory loss?... Well… it happened. I… don't remember _anything_ before that... "

Scourge's eyes widened as he looked at Miles in surprise and concern, letting it all sink in. Did Miles really have amnesia? Did he really lose all memory of all of the good times they had together? On the bright side, he also forgot a lot of the bad times as well, but from what Miles had told him, it looked like he was going to be expected to tell him about them, as well. And he knew he couldn't hide information from him or lie, because after what he admitted to him earlier, Miles would never let him live it down, and he had just gotten him to like him again. He didn't want him to go back to being bitterly resentful of him.

There was a silence as Miles looked down at the floor in shame with downcast eyes, not wanting to look vulnerable while being unable to hide how he felt. " There's still plenty of things that feel familiar to me, and that's the only guide I have as to what my past was like, that and keeping track of everything you two said about it, and from what I've gathered, my past has been miserable, but I still don't want to be ignorant of it for the rest of my life! I'm so tired of feeling like I'm an ignorant fool, clueless about so many things that I should be familiar with, like I'm lost in this, lost haze! And I need your help. I-I admit that I don't fully trust you, but you're the only one who can tell me everything I want to know. There's a lot of terrible experiences I've been through, but I can't help but feel like it's better to at least remember your own experiences on principle! " Miles told him, speaking quickly and getting increasingly more passionate as he finally let it all out.

" And the only way I can think of to make it so that I can actually recollect them again is to gather all the Chaos Emeralds, because I used the one we had and I remembered when we first met, when you saved me from certain death before even knowing what I could contribute to your life. I can't thank you enough for that, Scourge. W-What I'm saying is, I don't mind if you don't try to get the rest of the emeralds because it'll risk Sonic or someone else going after you for them. I'd prefer being able to remember everything again, just on sheer principle… but I told you all of this because I'd at least settle for being told about it… Besides, perhaps this'll give you a good reason to spend some more time with me than usual again. I can't quite remember the events surrounding my betrayal of you, but I have a feeling that maybe the reason I did was because, I felt like you didn't care about me anymore. Because you finally joined a gang and I had more friends than just you, you assumed I'd be happy with them while you didn't spend as much time with me anymore. That I felt abandoned, because the most important person in the world to me, acted like he had stopped caring about me, that there was even a possibility that he never did, and… " With that, he stopped speaking anymore as he started feeling choked up again, humiliated that he was once again going to look weak and pathetic in front of the closest person to family he's ever known.

To his surprise and relief, Scourge put his arms around him in a hug without even saying a word. Looking back on what he said before, Miles was thankful that he didn't get in trouble for letting it slip that he used his Chaos Emerald without his permission, and tried to unintentionally justify his betrayal of him, even if he was still ashamed of it. It really helped drive home how much of a better friend Scourge had become after the Suppression Squad turned against him again and showed him the error of his ways. While he still had a short temper and seemed smug and selfish, when it came right down to it, he cared about him and Fiona, and he had gotten a lot more consistent with showing it.

Scourge told him with concern and a serious but worried expression, " I… I understand, Miles… It'd take me forever to tell you everything, since I've known ya for so long, but if you _really_ wanna know everything about your past, I'll spill the beans to you. The bad news is, I really don't know much about your life before you met me because you kept it to yourself. You didn't like to talk about it. All I can do is _guess_ what happened to you based on certain things setting you off and, well, your scars. Long story short, I think that you've been attacked with every single weapon known to man. It's easy for me to get the idea that your life was crappy before I came along, but aside from the way they treated you when I first met ya, that's all I actually know. So all I can tell ya is what happened after you met me. That alright with you, champ? "

After a brief silence where Miles tried to adjust to the oddly familiar feeling of being called champ by his brother figure, he said quietly, " Thank you, " and managed a small smile. Scourge smiled and said, " And hey, you're right about me not wanting to risk everything on getting more emeralds and having people jump to the wrong conclusions. But if I ever happen across one, I'll be sure to let ya borrow it. You had a lot of crappy memories, but it wasn't _all_ bad, _especially_ after you met me! Or it wasn't _scarringly_ bad after me, anyways. There were still some bad memories afterwards. I, I-I'm sorry, kiddo, 'cause a lot of that was thanks to me. Me and my temper. I should've been taking it out on my enemies and making them suffer even more, not take it out on you. You've had it rough enough. But I never hurt you. We just argued and stuff... M-My point is, I'll help you with this… And you know what? If you don't want anyone else to know, that's fine by me. I won't even use this to blackmail you. I promise. " Miles smiled, and a tear escaped his eye and rolled down his cheek. He said quietly, " Thank you, " appreciating the affection that he had been deprived of for too long.

After a minute of holding him, Scourge smiled, and said, " Wait here, " let him go, ran in a green blur to his room and returned to Miles holding a certain object in his hand that, as soon as Miles finished drying his eyes, made him incredibly delighted to see. " A violin? " he said quietly, looking stunned. " Yep! You _are_ a musical _genius_ after all! I figured you'd want another one since you must have left your old one behind on the way to this dimension, so I used my connections to get you this one as a gift! It's real high quality, too! " Scourge said with a grin, proud of himself for knowing exactly what Miles would want for a gift. As Miles held it gingerly in his hands with a small smile, he said, " Thank you… " in a quiet tone with a nervous smile that implied he was afraid of expressing all of his happiness for fear that it would jinx it, and was caught off guard by such sudden kindness.

" Hey, you've earned it, pal. Heard you were runnin' out of books you wanted to read anyways. So now you have your old hobby back! The walls here are pretty thick, so you can just play it to your heart's content! Whenever you have some free time, " Scourge said happily. Miles briefly tested the violin out, playing a small cheery song, and smiled, having missed the peaceful feeling of playing music he enjoyed and using it to express his feelings instead of holding them all inside. " Thanks, Scourge. I really appreciate this, " Miles thanked him.

* * *

Author's Notes: It's finally done! And that'll probably be my last story here. So if you liked it, you should probably leave a review so I know what you think. Again, I don't think Miles' past and why he's evil is really addressed enough, so I wanted to give my own try at exploring the issue.


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